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# Active Nuclei and Star-Forming Objects at 𝑧>2: Metallicities, Winds, and Formation HistoriesBased on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract No. NAS5-26555.

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Our view of galaxies is being revolutionized by the opening of galaxy evolution to direct observational study. Systematic changes in the integrated star-formation rate with redshift are well-attested, though the details of these changes are still under debate (Madau et al. 1996, 1998; Pascarelle et al. 1998b, Haarsma et al. 2000, Thompson et al. 2001, Lanzetta et al. 2002), and changes in the galaxy content of rich clusters give the strongest evidence for evolution among galaxies. As we move beyond this, the obvious next goal is watching galaxy formation, or perhaps more accurately a longer process of galaxy building, which has repeatedly proven more elusive as we reach outward in redshift. Among the best candidates for protogalactic objects, especially if hierarchical CDM-like schemes apply, are the numerous faint, blue, and compact objects seen at large redshifts. A group or cluster of these was reported at $`z=2.4`$ by Pascarelle et al. (1996, P96), and similar systems prove to be common in the Hubble Deep Fields (Mobasher et al. 1996, Marleau & Simard 1998, Gardner & Satyapal 2000). These objects are of special interest as an early phase in galaxy development for several reasons. Their high emitted-ultraviolet luminosities imply correspondingly high star-formation rates, but they have no obvious population of counterparts in the local Universe (P96; Pascarelle et al. 1998 = P98). Most distinguishing, they are small, with effective radii barely resolved using HST at redshifts $`z>2`$, where $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}1`$ translates to $`0.51.0`$ kpc for currently popular cosmologies. There is weak evidence that the radial profiles are better fit by an $`R^{1/4}`$ bulge-like form than by an exponential disk (P96), although composite structures are certainly allowed. A significant fraction of these objects are closely paired, with merging timescales (incorporating pairwise velocity differences 200-300 km s-1) suggesting that they undergo rapid merging into more massive systems, or indeed represent pieces of larger dynamical systems (Colley et al. 1997). They are often strong Lyman $`\alpha `$ emitters without the additional emission lines that are strong in AGN, supporting an interpretation as star-forming systems. These properties are all consistent with the idea that these objects are showing us one of the final phases in galaxy formation, as star-forming protogalaxies or young galaxies grow via hierarchical merging. Their physical nature has elicited diverse opinions (Colley et al. 1996), hinging on whether they are actually seen early in the process of gas-to-star conversion, or might be localized starbursts within substantially larger and relatively old systems, whose surroundings are inconspicuous because of the severe cosmological surface-brightness dimming and the ultraviolet bias towards hot stars. Observations over a wider wavelength range are important in resolving this issue.

The 53W002 grouping offers an especially attractive opportunity to study several of these “sub-galactic” objects, in the same field, as well as AGN of various flavors. Two of the star-forming objects in our region of interest, objects 5 and 12, turn out to be at $`z=2.05`$ (Pascarelle et al. 2002), which places their Lyman $`\alpha `$ so near the edge of the HST F410M passband that we may have detected them through luck as much as statistics. We include these object in our study since their luminosities and sizes are similar to those of the star-forming objects at $`z=2.4`$. The results of the full spectroscopic followup were not known when the NICMOS observations were specified, so we pointed to include some objects (since found to be stars with excesses in the F410M passband) which we would have replaced by others in hindsight.

We present here a near-infrared study of the region surrounding 53W002, using HST NICMOS and IRTF data. This wavelength regime shows us the emitted optical range at this redshift, so we expect to see stars cooler than the B-type stars that dominate the emitted ultraviolet range originally used to find these objects. The full spectral shape from 1100–6600 Å in the emitted frame gives a much more sensitive way to see how old the stellar populations are and provide evidence of internal extinction, while spectroscopy in the near-IR can also indicate the gas abundances from \[O III\] and Balmer emission. The Lyman $`\alpha `$/H$`\alpha `$ ratio can tell us, albeit in a complicated way, about the abundances and geometry in the gas and dust. For the three luminous AGN in this sample, we can compare any host galaxy properties we can measure, and examine their extended ionized gas to see how well an ionization-cone model (as suggested by the Lyman $`\alpha `$ structures) explains them. We analyze HST NICMOS images and grism spectroscopy, and IRTF imaging in the $`K`$ band and redshifted H$`\alpha `$, to refine our understanding of how old and how large these putative young galaxies really are.

## 2 OBSERVATIONS

### 2.1 NICMOS Imaging and Spectroscopy

Two overlapping fields in the 53W002 region were observed with NICMOS, using the widest-field NIC3 camera during the first NICMOS refocus campaign in January 1998. Direct images of 2439 seconds’ duration were obtained in the F110W and F160W filters (corresponding roughly to emitted central wavelengths 3200 and 4700 Å at $`z=2.4`$), along with a similar exposure in F175W (emitted wavelength 5100 Å ) to support the grism spectroscopy, although the thermal background in this passband is substantially higher than in F160W, and its S/N ratio correspondingly worse. A single image set in F240M was also obtained, but the actual thermal performance of the telescope meant that only the few brightest objects in the field were detected.

We also obtained slitless spectroscopy with the NICMOS G141M grism for these two fields, with a total exposure time of 8054 seconds for each field. The dispersion was fortuitously oriented nearly north-south, perpendicular to the extended emission-line structure of 53W002, giving us a good spatial trace of \[O III\] $`\lambda 5007`$ in its ionization cones.

To complement these data for 53W002 itself, we obtained a single-orbit exposure at higher resolution using the NIC2 camera and F160W filter. The radio core-jet or small double structure of 53W002 makes it the best candidate for a dynamically relaxed, perhaps young elliptical galaxy in this grouping (Windhorst et al. 1998), so we use these data to look for any redder, extended de Vaucouleurs profile, as well as the role of line emission as evaluated with the help of the grism spectrum. At $`z=2.39`$, \[O III\] $`\lambda 5007`$ is observed at 1.697$`\mu `$m, so the two \[O III\] lines are strong contributors in the F160W passband.

The two NICMOS fields are outlined in Fig. 1 on a WFPC2 $`I`$-band (F814W) image showing the spectroscopically confirmed high-redshift objects, augmented with a ground-based $`V`$ image (Keel et al. 1999) to fill in regions outside the WFPC2 footprint. The NICMOS fields include all three of the AGN found in P96 as well as 6 of the fainter Lyman $`\alpha `$ emitters (not all of which were detected in the NICMOS images). Objects 10 and 13 of P96 have since proven to be stars (Pascarelle et al. 2002), which we suspected originally given their red colors, so they are not counted henceforth. For reference, Table 1 lists the targeted objects and their spectroscopic redshifts, including Lyman $`\alpha `$ results from Keck multislit observations presented by Pascarelle et al. (2002). The redshift of object 1 is ambiguous, with their paper listing $`z=3.05`$ as a possible redshift based on a marginal emission feature at 4955 Å . We also consider its properties if it in fact lies at $`z=2.4`$, in which case its actual line emission would be weaker and unseen in their spectrum.

We processed the NICMOS images to remove the variable “pedestal” effect, which is a change in the bias level between the quadrants of the detector. Our fields are sparse enough that blank sky could be used to assess the offsets quite accurately, which was done by simultaneously minimizing flat-field residuals in blank-sky regions and requiring continuity of the mean sky level across the four quadrant seams. Standard STScI/NICMOS library flat fields were used. Each final image is the clipped mean of a $`3\times 3`$ dither pattern with spacing $`1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}67`$ (8.3 pixels), done in three successive strips of three exposures each, to allow an exact match between coordinate systems in direct and grism images while retaining fine control over execution time. Pipeline removal of cosmic-ray events from the MULTIACCUM readout sequences was very effective, so that no further cosmic-ray treatment was required.

Close inspection shows ghost images 8 pixels along the detector $`+x`$ axis from the three bright stars in the NIC3 fields. These are apparently image persistence artifacts, as propagated through mosaicking with the 8-pixel dither step between successive observation sequences. None falls in a particularly damaging location for our purposes. In the grism images, there are several “zero-order” images of bright objects in and beyond the southern part of each field observed, which could potentially be confused with genuine (high-redshift) emission-line objects.

The dither sequence, on a set of (integer+1/3)-pixel centers, allowed drizzle reconstruction to improve sampling. We produced a set of F110W and F160W drizzled images on a $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}10`$ grid, and show the F160W images in Fig. 2. Photometry was carried out both using SExtractor to estimate total fluxes, and by explicit aperture photometry with curve-of-growth corrections based on the PSF. Comparison shows that these almost always agree at better than the 15% level, with a few larger discrepancies traced to resolved structures such as the extended emission-line regions around the AGN (which are prominent in F160W due to \[O III\] emission appearing at 1.70$`\mu `$m). This dispersion due to image structure is larger than the purely statistical error in the photometry, so we take the actual photometric error as 15% except for the two objects fainter than AB magnitude 24.7 in F110W, in which the internal statistical error dominates (giving errors of 0.2–0.3 magnitude). The grism data were processed using the NICMOSLOOK routine, to produce a synthetic flat field at each spectral pixel, based on the wavelength of the dispersed light from the associated object as identified from the direct image, and subsequent extraction of the spectra with windows optimized for the signal-to-noise ratio. A synthetic flat field was generated for each extracted spectrum, interpolating between narrow-band flats to derive the sensitivity appropriate to the wavelength corresponding to each pixel for the object’s position. The filters used to generate these flats are concentrated near 1.1, 1.6, and 1.9$`\mu `$m, and the filter curves suggest that linear interpolation between flats may generate fractional errors of 10% in the flat-field structure at the least-constrained wavelengths near 1.3$`\mu `$m. However, the wavelength region of redshifted H$`\beta `$ and \[O III\] $`\lambda 5007`$ (from 1.65-1.70$`\mu `$m), is well constrained by this process, so that flat-field errors in this spectral range are minimal. For emission-line objects too faint to have their spectra automatically extracted, we sought emission lines by examining the grism images at the $`x,y`$ locations given by the object’s coordinates in direct images and the predicted wavelength of \[O III\] $`\lambda 5007`$, based on the dispersion relation for the G141 disperser from the NICMOS Data Handbook (v3.0). The tilt angle between the dispersion axis and detector rows can change with time, and was derived from the data themselves using spectra of bright stars. In two cases we have formal detections of \[O III\] line emission from these faint Lyman $`\alpha `$ emitters, that are significant above the 2$`\sigma `$ level.

### 2.2 Ground-based 2$`\mu `$m imaging

We used the 3-m NASA Infrared Telescope Facility in July 1996 and April 1997 to observe the 53W002 region in $`K`$ and in redshifted H$`\alpha `$, with the $`256\times 256`$-pixel NSFCAM array configured for $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}30`$ pixels. The H$`\alpha `$ data used a circular variable filter (CVF) tuned to 2.22$`\mu `$m. We measured the filter bandwidth to be FWHM=0.040$`\mu `$m ($`\mathrm{\Delta }z=0.05`$ for redshifted H$`\alpha `$) from a spectral scan of NGC 7027 in Br$`\gamma `$ and the adjacent H2 S(1) line (at 2.166 and 2.247 $`\mu `$m, respectively). Individual $`K`$ exposures were 10 seconds, coadded in groups of six before saving to disk, while exposures through the CVF were 60 seconds long. From two observing runs, we obtained total integrations of 3.9 and 10.9 hours in the $`K`$ filter and CVF, respectively. The effective integration time per pixel varies substantially across the field, due to both short- and long-timescale dithering. Flux calibration used UKIRT faint standard stars (Hawarden et al. 2001).

To account for changes in the near-IR atmospheric emission spectrum on timescales of hours, we constructed sky-frames from sliding clipped means of data subsets. The seeing varied widely during the single night of 1996 observations, so we rejected images with poor image quality as assessed from bright field stars. The 1997 data suffered from a slowly time-variable PSF due to changes in the mirror figure with hour angle, so they were stacked into approximately one-hour blocks coinciding with changes in filter or large-scale dithering. The region of 53W002 itself was covered mostly in the 1996 data, while the area including the Ly$`\alpha `$ emitters to its west was included in both data sets, so we analyze these objects from the overall sum. For pure continuum objects, the count-rate ratio between narrow-band and $`K`$-band images is consistent within 2% over the range of colors encountered in this field, so we can use this ratio as a straightforward indicator of line emission within the CVF passband. The three AGN (53W002 itself and objects 18 and 19 of P96) are strong H$`\alpha `$+\[N II\] sources, with spatially integrated line fluxes from the NICMOS and IRTF observations as listed in Table 2. The table includes equivalent widths in Å in the emitted frame; the nearby narrow-line radio galaxy Cygnus A is included for comparison, from data in Owen, O’Dea, & Keel 1990 and Osterbrock & Miller 1975. The H$`\alpha `$ emission from 53W002 is spatially resolved, elongated E-W (Fig. 3), roughly matching the structure seen for Lyman $`\alpha `$ in WFPC2 imaging and for \[O III\] in the NICMOS spectrum.

We detected none of the $`z=2.4`$ star-forming objects in H$`\alpha `$+\[N II\] line emission, giving lower limits to the Ly$`\alpha `$/H$`\alpha `$ ratio. The detection thresholds vary somewhat with position, due to different effective integration times after mosaicking the various sets of pointings. Typical limits on H$`\alpha `$+\[N II\] flux are around $`1.1\times 10^{16}`$ erg cm-2 s-1.

## 3 SPECTRAL ENERGY DISTRIBUTIONS

We combine the integrated fluxes from the NICMOS data with new measurements from the earlier WFPC2 observations (P96, P98) to define the broadband spectral shape of the star-forming objects over the 1100-6500 Å emitted range. The WFPC2 fluxes have been improved through “on-the-fly” reprocessing with improved flat fields and bad-pixel maps, as compared with the earlier analysis. The relevant fluxes are given in Table 3, listed as the equivalent flux density at band center for a flat spectrum. For brevity we denote measures through WFPC2 filters by their nearest standard photometric equivalents: $`B`$ (F450W), $`V`$ (F606W), $`I`$ (F814W).

As shown in Fig. 4, the objects are quite blue across this entire spectral range, immediately suggesting that the stellar populations are both young and metal-poor (since such a steep slope leaves little scope for dust reddening). The three spectroscopically identified AGN distinguish themselves from the putative star-forming objects not only in flux but in having substantially flatter spectra in $`F_\lambda `$. To investigate the age and allowed metallicities of the star-forming objects, we follow the precepts of Calzetti et al. (1994) in using the UV slope parameter $`\beta `$ (where $`F_\lambda \lambda ^\beta `$ as fitted across the 1200-2600 Å range). This was derived by least-squares fitting in the log domain (Table 4). Many of the derived errors cluster closely, because much of the overall photometric error comes from either possible scale errors or aperture effects, and is thus not a very strong function of flux.

Calzetti et al. find that the intrinsic spectral slope of model populations in the extreme cases of an instantaneous burst (less than $`2\times 10^7`$ years old, to keep substantial ionizing flux), and continuous star formation at a constant rate, differ by no more than 13% in slope about the $`\beta =2`$ reference point over the 1200-2600 Å span of good IUE spectra, so that the observed slope of a star-forming system can be used to estimate the effective reddening. Using large-aperture integrated spectra, so that we deal with scattering and mixing of multiple star-forming regions in a way appropriate for comparison with the integrated properties we measure for the high-redshift objects, they show that nearby systems follow a correlation between slope of the UV spectral energy distribution (SED) and emission-line abundances, for a plausible reddening-metallicity correlation. Our slope measurements, being based on a few broad-band data points, are necessarily less sophisticated than the targeted spectral windows used by Calzetti et al. As noted by Bell et al. (2002), the difference in $`\beta `$ as derived from fitting in the purest continuum windows and from images in these broad passbands gives a typical error $`\pm 0.2`$, comparable to our purely observational statistical errors. We derive values $`\beta =1.1`$ to -2.3 from fits across the entire observed range from 0.45-1.6 $`\mu `$m for the star-forming objects in the 53W002 grouping (Table 4). Slopes over subsets of this spectral range are consistent, but give larger internal errors (and scatter), ranging from -1.4 to -2.4 between 0.55 and 1.1 $`\mu `$m. Only a few nearby star-forming objects have continua this blue; Calzetti et al. (1994) list only NGC 1705, UGC 9560, and Tol 1924-416 having $`\beta <1.8`$, while Meurer et al. (1999) add seven more (NGC 4861 and Mkn 153 at $`\beta <2.0`$ plus Mkn 66, NGC 3991, NGC 3738, UGCA410 and Mkn 357 with $`1.8>\beta >2.0`$). All these are classified as blue compact galaxies rather than within the ordinary Hubble types. THree of the six objects in the 53W002 field fall in this regime.

Although the correlation between spectroscopically derived \[O/H\] and $`\beta `$ has substantial scatter ($`\pm 0.2`$ in log (O/H) at 12+log (O/H)=8.3, with the scatter greatest at low metallicity), the only nearby systems as blue as objects 1, 12, and 60 in this sample have 12+log (O/H) $`<`$ 8.5, which implies less than half solar (12+log (O/H)=8.82). The extreme low-abundance dwarf I Zw 18 falls in this range, with $`\beta =2.43`$ from Meurer et al. (1999) and 12+ log (O/H)=7.18 from Izotov & Thuan (1999). The color-abundance relation clearly flattens at such low values, but even so, the metal abundances implied by the blue colors are low enough to suggest that we are seeing genuinely lower abundances at $`z=2.4`$ than are found in the most similar systems today. This is illustrated in Fig. 5 by both the observed and dereddened UV luminosities of the 53W002 star-forming objects, most of which fall outside the range of luminosity and $`\beta `$ populated by local objects.

Low metallicities for these systems are especially interesting in view of the high UV luminosities and derived SFR. In a simple picture of starbursts in an interstellar medium, the metallicity of the gas may reflect a combination of pre-burst conditions and metals expelled from the first supernovae of the starburst population itself. One might then expect a given starburst to have greater metallicity in the present Universe, after many Gyr of previous star formation has enriched the ISM, compared to the early Universe, in which the burst we observe may mark the first significant episode of star formation. Enrichment to about the SMC level should be quite rapid, on the order of $`10^7`$ years, unless the enriched material is quickly mixed with large amounts of pristine gas (Izotov & Thuan 1999, Kobulnicky 1997). The general luminosity-metallicity relation can be examined for differences in locus between local and high-redshift star-forming objects. To do this, we compare metallicities with UV luminosities at emitted wavelengths 1100–1300 Å , for which IUE and HST data are available on nearby objects (from Calzetti et al. 1994 and Meurer et al. 1999, augmented by \[O/H\] measures for I Zw 18 and NGC 4861 from Thuan & Izotov 1999). We consider sets of cosmological parameters with $`\mathrm{H}_0=6080`$ km s-1 Mpc-1, and both $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=0.3,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$. These combinations, at $`z=2.4`$, give ranges of linear scale from 4.9–9.5 kpc arcsec-1, and luminosity distance $`D_L=11.622.6`$ Gpc, at lookback times 6.8-12.5 Gyr and cosmic ages 1.2–3.1 Gyr. Thus for these high-redshift objects the luminosities we derive will vary by a factor 4 depending just on the adopted cosmology; in Table 5 we quote the geometric mean of these extremes. Smaller $`\mathrm{H}_0`$ and larger $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ increase the derived luminosity. The star-forming objects in the NICMOS fields all fall within the range $`1.59\times 10^{40}`$ erg s-1 Å-1 in this (emitted) passband, quite luminous indeed. The only object well within this luminosity range in the IUE sample used to derive the local relationships is Mkn 357 ($`z=0.05`$, $`L_{1200}=5.7\times 10^{40}`$). A metallicity-luminosity relation appears in the data for 12 + log (O/H)$`<8.6`$, above which extinction corrections become large enough that the star-forming regions are dimmer when using uncorrected data. The important point is that the objects at $`z>2`$ occupy a region in this plane which contains no nearby examples (Fig. 5).

The most luminous nearby object with 12 + log (O/H)$`<8.5`$ is Mkn 66, at 8.39 and L(UV)=$`4\times 10^{39}`$ erg s-1 Å-1, which is 4-20 times less luminous than the high-redshift objects (so there is no overlap for any of the cosmologies we consider). The gap grows for lower \[O/H\] values. Correction for internal absorption, which we do following Meurer et al. (1999) in taking $`dA_{1600}`$/d $`\beta `$ = 1.99, doesn’t change this situation, though it does increase some luminosities by an order of magnitude (Fig. 5).

These stellar populations cannot be extremely young bursts (a few $`10^6`$ years), or the optical line equivalent widths would be very high against the combined nebular and stellar continuum (as in Mkn 490, observed by De Robertis & Osterbrock 1986); the equivalent width of H$`\beta `$ saturates against the recombination continuum at 1350 Å. The continuity between WFPC2 and NICMOS fluxes, and the comparably good fit of the power law across the whole observed range, shows that the emerging light is dominated by young populations. We see no clear evidence of any upturn at longer wavelengths which would come from a significant redder and older population (section 6). Thus the populations do not furnish us the leverage needed for a detailed fit to models of various ages or mixed populations involving multiple star-forming episodes.

## 4 EMISSION LINES IN THE STAR-FORMING OBJECTS

Examination of individual pixels around the predicted location of the \[O III\] lines shows detections of $`\lambda 5007`$ (2-4 $`\sigma `$ at independently specified wavelengths) in two of the star-forming objects which are brightest at 1.6$`\mu `$m, object 11 at $`z=2.451`$ and object 12 at $`z=2.05`$. This procedure gave higher signal-to-noise ratio than the standard NICMOSLOOK spectral extraction for detecting faint and narrow emission features, whose results showed no significant line emission in either H$`\beta `$ or \[O III\]. Crosscuts through the grism images, showing emission at the expected wavelengths of \[O III\], are shown in Fig. 6. Both these objects show double morphologies in WFPC2 F450W images, which might either represent merging or multiple star-forming regions in a single galactic potential. In combination with the Ly$`\alpha `$ fluxes and SED slopes, even our upper limits for lines redshifted into the near-IR set interesting constraints on the effective ages and metallicities of these objects. The measurements and upper limits are given in Table 6. For comparison, upper limits to H$`\alpha `$ emission for these objects (Section 2.2) are typically $`7\times 10^{17}`$ erg cm-2 s-1. This already indicates a minimal role for dust, since the Lyman $`\alpha `$/H$`\alpha `$ ratio is required to be larger than encountered in nearby star-forming systems (e.g. Giavalisco, Koratkar, & Calzetti 1996); lower limits for the ratio range from 0.3–3 for various objects. The H$`\alpha `$ limits imply upper limits on H$`\beta `$ slightly more stringent than do the NICMOS spectra themselves, typically $`2\times 10^{17}`$ erg cm-2 s-1, for those objects at $`z=2.39\pm 0.013`$ (including, as it happens, neither of the objects with possible \[O III\] detections, since their redshifts fall outside the range for bona fide group members for which the narrow CVF H$`\alpha `$ filter was tuned).

The continuum slopes make it clear that these objects must be in the low-metallicity regime, so they are likely to fall on the lower branch of the relation between \[O III\]/H$`\beta `$ and \[O/H\], often used to estimate metallicities for faint objects by the “bright-line” method (introduced by Pagel et al. 1979). The line limits (and possible \[O III\] detections) can put combined constraints on the duration of star formation and metallicity. Significant star formation is still in progress as we see these objects, since there is enough ionizing radiation to power the Lyman $`\alpha `$ emission, although radiative-transfer effects mean that we cannot use its intensity by itself as a reliable estimator of the rate of star formation. The equivalent width of H$`\beta `$ was considered as an age indicator by Copetti et al. (1986). We use the more recent models presented by Stasinska and Leitherer (1996). Effective burst ages in the range $`(38)\times 10^6`$ years satisfy the equivalent-width limits for the emitted-optical lines while still having strong Lyman $`\alpha `$. The H$`\beta `$ limits rule out very young, high-ionization starbursts; there must be enough cooler stars to contribute diluting light to the continuum around H$`\beta `$. Photospheric absorption in the stellar populations will be small compared to these limits; the largest equivalent widths seen in main-sequence stars are 13.5 Å , from the data presented by Jacoby, Hunter, & Christian (1984), while the largest values for model populations with a Salpeter-like initial-mass function are only 4 Å .

Stasinska and Leitherer note that there is a small spread in model parameters needed to reproduce the observed properties of low-metallicity starbursts, so that the \[O III\] equivalent width is also useful as an age indicator. Using their models for metallicity 0.25 and 0.1 solar, the H$`\beta `$ limits imply equivalent burst ages greater than $`2.5\times 10^6`$ years for the high limits, and $`4\times 10^6`$ years for the lowest limit (object 5). For the two nominal detections of \[O III\], its equivalent width gives broadly concordant ages, $`(25)\times 10^6`$ years for the relevant metallicity range. If these detections are valid, they put lower limits on the gas metallicity, since the implied \[O III\]/H$`\beta >3`$ for these two objects. However, again following the models published by Stasinska & Leitherer (1996), these limits only imply that the abundances are less than solar, since the predicted line ratios (in the age range matching the equivalent widths) are high for all the abundances they considered. This is much less stringent than limits from the continuum slope, though refinement from ground-based data is now possible using IR spectrometers on 8-10m telescopes. We note that the two objects with \[O III\] detections are the reddest and presumably most metal-rich of the NICMOS sample, which fits with the picture that these are all on the low-metallicity branch of the relation between O/H and \[O III\]/H$`\beta `$, so that lower O/H in fact weakens \[O III\] emission.

There is a dual paradox in the combination of high rates of star formation needed for the observed ultraviolet luminosity, low metallicity, and number of objects seen in the small volume of the 53W002 grouping. If these are continually forming stars over a long time, we should see low abundances in a closed-box system for only a very short time, and might expect to see a much larger number of older systems with redder colors and higher metallicities, which the source counts in this field do not allow. If indeed they have all begun star formation only $`10^7`$ years before our view, it seems unusual good fortune that they have done so nearly simultaneously so that we see so many at once. We might thus consider pictures in which such systems might be observable with these properties for longer times, and ask what kinds of present-day galaxies they might become.

Episodic star formation makes some of these issues more tractable, though still suggesting that there are more similar objects in a dim state by a factor related to the duty cycle of active star formation. Such episodes might be triggered by the equivalent of mergers (though now for systems which might or might not already be considered distinct galaxies, and might not yet have undergone important levels of star formation). This notion has some support from the fact that half of star-forming objects in our sample have double structure on 2-5 kpc scales, and the well-documented relation between tidal interactions and star formation in the present Universe. This mechanism lengthens the timespan over which the objects are (sometimes) bright, but does not address the low-metallicity issue.

There is substantial evidence that global winds (superwinds) were important during the early phases of galaxy evolution. Powerful winds are suggested for high-redshift galaxies by strong and slightly redshifted Lyman $`\alpha `$ emission (e.g. Pettini et al. 2001), by the amount of early enrichment needed to account for abundances in the intracluster and intergalactic media (Tripp, Savage, & Jenkins 2000), and by a connection between strong Lyman $`\alpha `$ and global winds for starburst galaxies (Keel 2002). At low redshifts, the fossil record of dwarf galaxies and ongoing winds in starbursting dwarfs suggest that many low-mass galaxies have been swept clean by winds rather than being able to self-enrich with processed material for long times (Marlowe et al. 1995).

Winds from the star-forming objects we see at $`z>2`$ would help explain both the strong Lyman $`\alpha `$ emission and low abundances, since processed gas would be removed as fast as it is produced. If this only happens once, these objects are not the progenitors of any obvious present-day galaxy population, but multiple cycles of gas inflow and outflow could yield an interesting stellar mass and slow buildup of metals. Such cycles could ameliorate the fading problem, giving a final stellar mass that corresponds at least to current dwarf systems. Our direct limits on the star-forming histories of these objects are not very strong (section 6), although we can say that they allow a mass in stars (for a Salpeter-like initial mass function) which is an order of magnitude greater than the mass of stars with age less than $`10^7`$ years, so that in principle many similar episodes could have occurred.

## 5 STRUCTURE AROUND AGN IN THE EMISSION LINES AND CONTINUUM

Observations in the emitted UV have shown extended structure around all three bright AGN in this field, as seen in Lyman $`\alpha `$ (Windhorst et al. 1998, Keel et al. 1999), an interestingly high fraction even if one based on small numbers. The brightest parts of the extended emission are elongated, and in two cases roughly triangular with the nucleus at the apex. In line with observations of many other AGN, such structures may fairly be interpreted as ionization or scattering cones, an idea we explore using these data. Further information on these features might distinguish the roles of scattering and in situ line emission, and to tell whether this material is part of outflows driven by the AGN or might represent ambient (enriched) material. The near-IR data show these structures as traced by H$`\alpha `$ and \[O III\] $`\lambda `$ $`\lambda `$ 4959, 5007, adding not only new ions but new combinations of spatial and spectral resolution. The line intensities and equivalent widths are given in Table 2, along with Lyman $`\alpha `$ fluxes from Pascarelle et al. (2002) for comparison. The NICMOS spectra are shown in Fig. 7. At this redshift, \[O II\] $`\lambda 3727`$ falls in a region of poor throughput, so it was not clearly detected in any of these AGN.

The Lyman $`\alpha `$/H$`\alpha `$ ratios for the three AGN range from 0.2 (53W002) to 2.0 (object 19). Values near 2 are usual for nearby narrow-line radio galaxies over a wide range of ionization (Keel & Windhorst 1991). H$`\beta `$ is not clearly detected in any of these objects. It would appear 6 pixels blueward of the $`\lambda 5007`$ peak, but the two objects with strongest \[O III\] show spatially extended emission such that the monochromatic \[O III\] emission overlaps the location of H$`\beta `$. A multicomponent fit to the profile in 53W002 gives a formal value H$`\beta `$/\[O III\]=0.06, best taken as an upper limit. Ratios this large are common in narrow-line AGN, such as Cyg A (Costero & Osterbrock 1977).

We note that the emitted-ultraviolet spectra (Pascarelle et al. 2002) of these three AGN, like essentially all others where the spectrum is not compromised by broad absorption features, show solar or supersolar metallicities for the broad-line regions. Hamann et al. (2002) find that the nitrogen abundance is most robustly measured from strong UV lines, especially $`\lambda 1240`$, and that formation of massive stars must have been active for $`10^8`$ years to yield such enrichment. This is in stark contrast to the low abundances derived from colors and line-ratio limits in the star-forming narrow Lyman $`\alpha `$ sources.

The colors and emission-line structures of the extended emission around the AGN have suggested a mix of mechanisms for their radiation. The strong and very extended Lyman $`\alpha `$ cloud around object 18 (Pascarelle et al. 1996, Keel et al. 1999) requires in situ photoionization, probably by an anisotropic continuum source. However, the NICMOS spectrum shows that the continuum at 1.5-1.6$`\mu `$m is spatially resolved, spanning a $`1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}4`$ range, suggesting that scattering is also important (whether or not we have a direct view of the nucleus). The nature of the putative scattering medium is important for understanding the history of star formation in the AGN hosts. If dust is responsible, we have very different conditions in the AGN host galaxies, which are metal-rich enough to be producing substantial dust for transport over tens of kpc, while their non-AGN neighbors are so metal-poor that we see only mild evidence of internal extinction in the ultraviolet. This correlation between derived metallicity and presence of an AGN suggests that the low-luminosity star-forming objects have not yet hosted a powerful AGN. The extent of transport of the dust and enriched gas might be important in some cases if it can interact with the nearby star-forming systems.

### 5.1 Reflection nebulosity in Object 18

Object 18 has complex extended structure in Lyman $`\alpha `$ emission (Pascarelle et al. 1996, Keel et al. 1999). The roles of ionization and reflection are not well separated by earlier imaging data, and the grism spectrum provides new evidence that reflection (presumably from dust many kiloparsecs from the nucleus) plays a significant role. A crosscut through the grism data perpendicular to the dispersion (which is almost north-south) shows that its image is resolved and distinctly double. Such resolution might be due to a genuinely complex starlight distribution or to scattering of radiation from the AGN. A contribution from scattering would be especially interesting, implying that grains are abundant and widely distributed (perhaps by global AGN-driven winds). All three AGN in the field we observed show extended emission-line clouds at lower levels, and it is at least suggestive that these are objects with higher abundances as judged from the AGN emission lines.

A combination of scattered and in situ line emission fits with the Keck optical spectroscopy from Pascarelle et al. (2002). A slit through the extended emission about 1” NE of the core of object 18 shows strong line emission, including the C IV $`\lambda 1549`$ feature (a blended doublet) which is characteristic of the dense environment in active nuclei, seen in the cloud at a level C IV / Ly $`\alpha `$=0.17. The ratio is somewhat larger in the core, at 0.30, but it is not obvious that we can derive relative contributions of scattered AGN light and in situ photoionization from these two ratios, since we do not know whether the core spectrum gives a direct view of the broad-line region.

The grism data furnish what amounts to a monochromatic image in \[O III\] once the smooth continuum has been subtracted (shown in Fig. 8). Two prominent emission lumps appear, roughly coincident with the AGN core and the Lyman $`\alpha `$ cloud $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}6`$ to its northeast as seen in the WFPC2 data. The core:cloud flux ratio is 0.6 in \[O III\], substantially higher than in the continum. The mix of scattered to local radiation must be different on the two lines of sight; lacking confirmation of a direct view of the core, these values cannot yet specify this mix.

### 5.2 Extended line emission and the host galaxy of 53W002

Given the brightness of possibly scattered light in object 18, and since object 19 is nearly a point source, 53W002 itself is the only one of the AGN whose host galaxy we can examine in detail. Even in this case, the imaging analysis has not been altogether straightforward in the presence of extended emission-line structure along the radio-source axis, which might be accompanied by continuum reflection as well (Windhorst et al. 1998). Considerable new information is added by the Subaru spectrum of 53W002 across the JHK bands presented by Motohara et al. (2001). They detect a substantial Balmer jump in the starlight, rather than the 4000-Å break which would be strong in populations much more than about $`10^9`$ years old. This spectroscopic analysis avoids some of the uncertainties in using the emitted-UV colors of the galaxy after removing various estimates of the contribution from the AGN and associated extended structure (as was done in W91, W94, and W98). In all cases the age derived from the SED is less than $`5\times 10^8`$ years.

The NIC2 F160W image and slitless spectrum can be combined to improve our separation of line emission and continuum structure in the host of 53W002. At the low dispersion of the G140L grism, the two \[O III\] lines are blended by the resolved emission-line structure, so that subtracting an interpolated continuum gives a good approximation to a monochromatic \[O III\] image (Fig. 8). The \[O III\] emission comes largely from two regions $`1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}0`$ apart situated symmetrically about the nucleus along the same axis as the Lyman $`\alpha `$ extent, consistent with following the radio-source axis. Line emission from the AGN core itself is rather weak, about 15% of the total flux, and the two emission regions are unequal with almost 2/3 of the total flux coming from the western one.

We can then rotate this \[O III\] image, scale properly in both pixel size and intensity, and subtract it from the NIC2 broadband image to yield an improved image of the galaxy’s continuum structure alone (including the nucleus and any scattered AGN light). This passband, centered near 4800 Å in the emitted frame, should be a better tracer of its overall stellar structure than the emitted-UV images from WFPC2. The result shows that much of the asymmetric structure in F160W, which roughly coincides with the \[O III\] emission, is not line contamination, but represents continuum light. The line emission accounts for about 16% of the total radiation in this passband, and its subtraction (based on the lower-resolution grism data) does not change the overall morphology in this respect. This reinforces the conclusions from Windhorst et al. (1998), that there is a substantial contribution by reflection (or local, triggered star formation) along the radio axis.

## 6 OLDER HALOS AROUND STAR-FORMING SYSTEMS?

The difficulty of detecting typical galaxies at $`z>2`$, and difficulties in matching the correlation statistics of galaxies in deep fields to dynamical-friction behavior, have led to suggestions that many of the faint objects seen in deep fields do not represent distinct galaxies, but star-forming regions imbedded within larger dynamical entitities (Colley et al. 1996, 1997). This issue is important not only for interpreting the number counts, but for our whole picture of galaxy building. We can test for the role of surface-brightness and ultraviolet favoritism in our sample by seeking any redder halos around the star-forming objects, and using color information to tell whether the apparent double objects might represent associations of a galactic center (presumably with a longer history of star formation) and an offset region of active star formation but less stellar mass. Redder halos are common among the rapidly star-forming systems such as blue compact galaxies (Cairós et al. 2001), in accord with studies of the stellar populations in some local star-forming galaxies (Loose & Thuan 1986, Schulte-Ladbeck et al. 1999a,b and references therein).

To make color-index images of the Lyman $`\alpha `$ emitters, we convolved the WFPC2 $`B`$ images to match the resolution of the NICMOS data, at both F110W for better resolution and F160W to sample longward of the 4000-Å break. Due to the boxy effective PSF resulting from drizzling the NICMOS images, and the different directions of diffraction structures in the two data sets, a differential point-spread function was constructed through deconvolution of a star seen in the NICMOS data with the same star from the WFPC2 data, after resampling them to the same pixel scale. The differential PSF had significant negative sidelobes, because of the diffraction spikes, and was slightly tweaked by a further Gaussian blur of 0.5-pixel ($`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}05`$) FWHM to give neutral color gradients in the outer edges of images of bright unresolved objects.

We find no evidence of redder halos in the NICMOS data; there is a slight trend in the opposite sense, to have bluer halos, although the PSF matching is sensitive enough to numerical details that we can’t claim that this tendency is real. Specific flux limits depend on how extensive the underlying redder population is taken to be. Limits to the overall amount of light from a redder population can come from the photometry. Since the SEDs are well described by the power-law forms which are empirically good fits for local star-forming systems over a wide range of metallicity, an upper limit to the amount of light from a redder population can come from considering the mean residuals at the longest wavelengths with respect to a power law fit at shorter wavelengths. We consider excesses measured at 1.6$`\mu `$m above a power-law $`\beta `$ fit to data from 0.45-1.1$`\mu `$m, which will be especially sensitive to populations old enough for either a strong Balmer or 4000-Å break. Of six objects, there are equal numbers with positive and negative residuals at 1.6$`\mu `$m with respect to the power law fitted to shorter wavelengths. The mean value is -0.01 dex with a standard deviation of 0.20 dex. Using the standard deviation of the mean, no more than 0.08 dex (or 20%) of the flux emitted at 4800 Å comes from an older population. Any old population much brighter than this would have to be so extended, and hence of such low surface brightness, that it is not reflected in apertures more than 10 times the effective radius of the UV component.

The properties of the three Lyman $`\alpha `$ emitters which show double morphologies in the WFPC2 images are also relevant to the question of whether we are really seeing the whole systems here, or only star-forming pieces. Given the color and surface-brightness selection biases inherent in optical detection at large redshifts, these could equally well be genuine, dynamically multiple systems, or represent a nucleus and offset star-forming region. The latter case would generally give different colors for the two components, especially when observed at redder wavelengths where any pre-existing population in the nucleus would be more prominent. The three such putative paired objects in the NICMOS fields are too close together to be clearly resolved in the NIC3 data (Fig. 9), but we can check for significant color differences between components by measuring shifts in peaks or centroids between the WFPC2 and NICMOS data when measured at a common resolution. Any such shifts are below our error levels, which are about 0.2 drizzled pixel or $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}02`$ as measured from bright stellar images. This implies that the flux ratios between components in no case change by more than about 50% from $`B`$ to 1.6$`\mu `$m. Specifically, the northern component of object 12 is about 0.3 magnitude brighter at 1.6$`\mu `$m than at $`B`$ relative to its close companion $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}27`$ away. Object 11 has components $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}4`$ apart, just resolved in the NICMOS drizzled images. In this case as well, the intensity ratio is constant at the 30% level from $`B`$ to F160W (about the level at which we can retrieve a value). We cannot put such a fine limit on the color of the components of object 5, since it was observed on the PC chip which does not include enough objects to register the coordinates accurately at the sub-pixel level against the NICMOS data, which would be required to measure color-introduced shifts given its component separation of $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}25`$. As far as we can tell from these data on close pairs of Lyman $`\alpha `$ emitters, both components have similar star-forming properties and histories, as revealed shortward of 5000 Å in their emitted frames.

## 7 CONCLUSIONS

Comparing NICMOS and IRTF observations in the emitted optical range to WFPC2 data in the emitted ultraviolet, we have extended our probe of the nature and evolutionary status of the 53W002 galaxy grouping at $`z=2.4`$, considering both the three AGN in our field and accompanying star-forming objects selected for narrow Lyman $`\alpha `$ emission.

It is useful to compare these low-luminosity objects to the Lyman break galaxies at $`z>3`$ observed in \[O III\] by Teplitz et al. (2000), most with narrowband filters in preselected $`z`$ ranges. We constructed hybrid equivalent widths for \[O III\] $`\lambda 5007`$ – from their spectroscopic fluxes and imaging broad-band magnitudes – in the emitted frame. Their sample is more luminous in the 5000-Å continuum than ours, as might be expected from the selection methods. We can compare this spectral region directly between the two samples, since it falls in the $`K`$ band for $`z=3.3`$ and the $`H`$ or NICMOS F160W band at $`z=2.4`$. Lack of detected H$`\beta `$ coupled with the observed \[O III\] strengths lead Teplitz et al. to infer \[O/H\] = 0.2–0.9 $`\times `$ solar for their objects, concluding that “most LBGs appear likely to have less than solar metallicity, and yet not to lie in the extremely low Z regime seen in low-mass local galaxies”. We argue that the less luminous, and bluer, Lyman $`\alpha `$ emitters do extend into this regime. Their 5000-Å luminosities, averaged logarithmically, are typically about three times lower than the Lyman-break systems, before any differential reddening correction (which would only increase this difference). Furthermore, we see evidence for a luminosity-metallicity connection within our sample, since the bluest objects are also the faintest in the emitted ultraviolet, as seen in Figure 5. We might speculate that either the more luminous objects began star formation earlier, or that they have deeper potential wells and therefore can self-enrich their gas supply more efficiently than the less luminous, presumably lower-mass objects we see at $`z=2.4`$.

Comparing this set of AGN and star-forming objects in a narrow redshift range gives some hints on how AGN hosts and other systems differ at this epoch. The AGN are interacting with their surroundings, as shown by structures that may be reflection and ionization cones. These are extensive enough to suggest material ejected from the AGN hosts, driven either by the AGN themselves or by associated star formation. In either case, abundances in these winds, which are strong \[O III\] as well as Lyman $`\alpha `$ sources, are likely to be several times higher than in the star-forming objects, suggesting that star formation began earlier and perhaps at a higher rate in the AGN hosts. In contrast, the abundances in the fainter objects with active star formation are substantially below solar, so that either they have only recently begun star formation or have such shallow potential wells that they do not self-enrich. Either case poses interesting questions for the number density and fate of these objects - if they have been forming stars for only a few times $`10^7`$ years, why do we see so many of them? On the other hand, if they are losing material so rapidly, they should fade by a large factor unless replenished by infalling gas against the trend of mass loss driven by star formation. Multiple episodes of infall, star formation, and outflow might be needed if these objects are the precursors of luminous present-day galaxies.

If these systems are indeed losing their ISM by global winds, star formation will shut down quickly and they will fade passively. From the Bruzual & Charlot (1993) models, such passive evolution will amount to about 4–6 magnitudes in $`V`$, depending on just how long the initial burst lasts. That would give these objects present-epoch $`V`$ luminosities of order $`2\times 10^{37}5\times 10^{38}`$ erg s-1, for absolute magnitudes $`M_V=14`$ to $`17`$, respectable values for current gas-poor dwarf galaxies. It is therefore possible that in these systems we are observing an epoch of sweeping driven by starbursts, as described by Wyse & Silk (1985) and related to the nearby systems observed by Marlowe et al. (1995). By contrast, the AGN may have hosted multiple or very protracted bursts of star formation, while the subgalactic objects have undergone fewer bursts, resulting in lower O/H, and perhaps winds which are overall less energetic (thought still sufficient to escape their shallower potential wells).

Taken together, these results make sense in a broad hierarchical scheme, with the AGN forming in those systems which started from the strongest fluctuations, collapsed first, and underwent the earliest star formation, leaving the lower-mass objects to collapse later, perhaps undergoing their first widespread star formation near the observed epoch at $`z=2.4`$. However, the unresolved questions about the fate of the star-forming objects still make it difficult to tie these systems together with present-day galaxies.

This work was supported by NASA through STScI grants GO-07459.\*-96A. Luminosities of nearby star-forming systems were calculated using IUE data retrieved from the MAST archive maintained at STScI. Ned Wright’s WWW calculator for cosmological quantities was a time-saver, particularly in comparing data on objects at higher redshifts. We acknowledge, as well, a useful conversation with Eric Bell in comparing experience fitting the $`\beta `$ slope in various ways. We thank the referee, Rodger Thompson, for comments which led to improvement in our analysis as well as discussion.


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# The generating function for a particular class of characters of 𝑆𝑈(𝑛)

## 1 Introduction

Among the integrable quantum mechanical systems known to date, those related to the root systems of finite dimensional simple Lie algebras form a prominent class . They constitute, in particular, a natural framework to extend many classical systems of ortogonal polynomials to the case of several independent variables. A much studied example is the trigonometric Calogero-Sutherland model related to $`A_{n1}`$ , , whose eigenfunctions provide a natural generalization to $`n`$ variables of the Gegenbauer polynomials. A number of properties of these generalized Gegenbauer polynomials are known , ,, . The polynomials depend on a continuous parameter $`\kappa `$, which is related to the coupling constant in the Hamiltonian, and are determined by $`n1`$ quantum numbers. Several special values for these quantities are interesting, among which we mention two: first, when the $`\kappa `$ parameter goes to unity, the generalized Gegenbauer polynomials converge to the characters of the irreducible representations of $`SU(n)`$; second, when only the first quantum number is non-vanishing, the polynomials become those of Jack .

In the task of deepening our understanding of the properties of the generalized Gegenbauer polynomials, the computation of the generating function would be one important milestone. This is known only for the simplest $`A_1`$ and $`A_2`$ cases . Nevertheless, in some circumstances one can extract useful information from the generating function of some particular subsets of the whole system of ortogonal polynomials. The generating function of Jack polynomials, for instance, has been recently used as the starting point of an inductive proof of the structure of the derivatives of the generalized Gegenbauer polynomials . This function is a simple deformation of the generating function of the characters of the irreducible representations of $`SU(n)`$ obtained by taking $`\kappa =1`$ in the Jack polynomials. This shows how the knowledge of the generating function of some specific classes of irreducible characters of $`SU(n)`$ can be a valuable clue for studying the corresponding generating function for the generalized Gegenbauer polynomials. In this spirit, the purpose of this article is to compute the generating function of a subset of irreducible characters of $`SU(n)`$ which represents the immediate next step in complexity starting from the characters related to Jack polynomials.

## 2 Computation of the generating function

As stated in the introduction, our goal is to compute

$$F(t,z_i)=\underset{k=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}P_k(z_j)t^k$$
(1)
where $`P_k(z_j)`$ is the character of the irreducible representation of $`SU(n)`$ whose associated Young diagram has only two rows of length $`k`$, i.e.

$$P_k(z_j)=\chi _{k,k,0,\mathrm{},0}(z_j).$$
(2)
We explain the notation. We use $`\chi _{k_1,k_2,\mathrm{},k_n}`$ to designate the character of the irreducible representation of $`SU(n)`$ with Young diagram containing $`k_i`$ boxes in the $`i`$-th row; $`z_j`$ is the $`j`$-th elementary symmetric polynomial in the coordinates $`x_1,x_2,\mathrm{},x_n`$ of the maximal torus of $`SU(n)`$:

$$z_j=\underset{i_1<i_2<\mathrm{}<i_j}{}x_{i_1}x_{i_2}\mathrm{}x_{i_j}.$$
(3)
There exists a simple relation between the $`\chi `$-symbols and the generalized Gegenbauer polynomials for $`\kappa =1`$, namely

$$\chi _{k_1,k_2,\mathrm{},k_n}=z_n^{k_n}P_{k_1k_2,k_2k_3,\mathrm{},k_{n1}k_n}^1.$$
(4)
Finally, we give two convenient formulae for computing the characters. First, directly in terms of the $`x_j`$, we have the Weyl character formula

$$\chi _{k_1,k_2,\mathrm{},k_n}(x_j)=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }}|x^{n+k_11},x^{n+k_22},\mathrm{},x^{k_n}|,$$
(5)
in which the shorthand notation

$$|x^{\lambda _1},x^{\lambda _2},\mathrm{},x^{\lambda _n}|=\left|\begin{array}{cccc}x_1^{\lambda _1}& x_1^{\lambda _2}& \mathrm{}& x_1^{\lambda _n}\\ x_2^{\lambda _1}& x_2^{\lambda _2}& \mathrm{}& x_2^{\lambda _n}\\ \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}\\ x_n^{\lambda _1}& x_n^{\lambda _2}& \mathrm{}& x_n^{\lambda _n}\end{array}\right|$$
(6)
is used, and the denominator is the Vandermonde determinant

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=|x^{n1},x^{n2},\mathrm{},1|=\underset{i<j}{}(x_ix_j).$$
(7)
And second, as functions of $`z_j`$, they can be expressed through the second Giambelli identity : if $`(l_1,l_2,\mathrm{},l_m)`$ is the conjugate partition to $`(k_1,k_2,\mathrm{},k_n)`$,

$$\chi _{k_1,k_2,\mathrm{},k_n}(z_j)=\left|\begin{array}{ccccc}z_{l_1}& z_{l_1+1}& z_{l_1+2}& \mathrm{}& z_{l_1+m1}\\ z_{l_21}& z_{l_2}& z_{l_2+1}& \mathrm{}& z_{l_2+m2}\\ \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}\\ z_{l_mm+1}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& z_{l_m}\end{array}\right|$$
(8)
where it is understood that $`z_0=1`$ and $`z_j=0`$ if $`j>n`$ or $`j<0`$.

After these preliminaries, we turn back to (1). According to (5), we can write

$$F=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }}\underset{k=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(\underset{\sigma S_n}{}\mathrm{sgn}(\sigma )x_{\sigma (1)}^{n1+k}x_{\sigma (2)}^{n2+k}x_{\sigma (3)}^{n3}\mathrm{}x_{\sigma (n1)}^1x_{\sigma (n)}^0)t^k.$$
(9)
If we interchange the summatories, we get an alternating sum of simple geometric progressions, thus

$$F=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }}\underset{\sigma S_n}{}\frac{x_{\sigma (1)}^{n1}x_{\sigma (2)}^{n2}\mathrm{}x_{\sigma (n1)}^1x_{\sigma (n)}^0}{1tx_{\sigma (1)}x_{\sigma (2)}},$$
(10)
which we will write as

$$F=\frac{g}{f}$$
(11)
with

$`f`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i<j}{}}(1tx_ix_j)`$ (12)
$`g`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}{\displaystyle \underset{\sigma S_n}{}}\mathrm{sgn}(\sigma )x_{\sigma (1)}^{n1}x_{\sigma (2)}^{n2}\mathrm{}x_{\sigma (n1)}{\displaystyle \frac{f}{1tx_{\sigma (1)}x_{\sigma (2)}}}.`$ (13)
$`f`$ and $`g`$ are polynomials in $`t`$ of respective degrees $`N=\frac{1}{2}n(n1)`$ and $`N1`$. It is obvious that the coefficients of $`f`$ are homogeneous symmetric polynomials in $`x_i`$ over the integers. As $`F`$ is a series of polynomials of the same kind, the statement turns out to be also true for $`g`$. Our next task is to compute $`f`$ and $`g`$ in closed form; we would like, in particular, to express their coefficients in the most natural basis for homogeneous symmetric polynomials in the present context: the irreducible characters of $`SU(n)`$, or Schur polynomials.

In fact, the result for $`f`$ is known: it was obtained by Weyl in the course of his computation of the characters of the symplectic groups. The Weyl result is

$$f=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }}|x^{n1},x^{n2}+x^n,x^{n3}+x^{n+1},\mathrm{},1+x^{2n2}||_{x>\sqrt{t}x}.$$
(14)
Given this expression, we can obtain the coefficients in $`t`$ in

$$f=1Z_1t+Z_2t^2Z_3t^3+\mathrm{}+(1)^NZ_Nt^N$$
(15)
by expanding the determinant in the numerator of (14) in such a way that all terms have monomial columns and collecting terms of the same order in $`t`$. This gives $`Z_d`$ as a sum of determinantal quotients of the form

$$z_\lambda =\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }}|x^{n+\lambda _r},x^{n+\lambda _{r1}},\mathrm{},x^{n+\lambda _1},x^{n1},\mathrm{},\widehat{x^{n(\lambda _12)}},\mathrm{},\widehat{x^{n(\lambda _r2)}},\mathrm{},1||_{x>\sqrt{t}x}$$
(16)
where the hat over a term means that the term is absent and the sum is is extended to all possible combinations such that

$`n2\lambda _r>\lambda _{r1}>,\mathrm{},>\lambda _1`$ $``$ $`0`$
$`\lambda _1+\mathrm{}+\lambda _r`$ $`=`$ $`dr.`$ (17)
From (16), the Weyl character formula gives $`z_\lambda =\chi _{k_1,k_2,\mathrm{},k_n}`$ with

$$k_j=\{\begin{array}{cc}j+\lambda _{rj+1}\hfill & 1jr\hfill \\ r\hfill & r+1jr+\lambda _1+1\hfill \\ rk\hfill & r+\lambda _k+3kjr+\lambda _{k+1}+1k,k=1,2,\mathrm{},r1\hfill \\ 0\hfill & j\lambda _r+3\hfill \end{array}$$
(18)
A closer inspection shows that this structure corresponds to a Young diagram of rank $`r`$ with $`j+\lambda _{rj+1}`$ boxes in the $`j`$-th row and in which the number of rows with number of boxes greater or equal to $`j`$ is $`1+j+\lambda _{rj+1}`$, $`j=1,2,\mathrm{},r`$. Therefore, the Young diagram associated to $`\chi _{k_1,k_2,\mathrm{},k_n}`$ is $`(\lambda _r,\lambda _{r1},\mathrm{},\lambda _1|\lambda _r+1,\lambda _{r1}+1,\mathrm{},\lambda _1+1)`$ in Frobenius notation, see , and, by identifying each diagram with its associated $`SU(n)`$ character, we can write

$$Z_d=\underset{𝒫_d}{}(\beta _11,\beta _21,\mathrm{},\beta _r1|\beta _1,\beta _2,\mathrm{},\beta _r)$$
(19)
where $`𝒫_d`$ is the set of partitions of $`d`$ such that $`\beta _1>\beta _2>\mathrm{}>\beta _r1`$.

On the other hand, we can show that $`g`$ is given by a determinantal expression very similar to (14):

$$g=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }}|x^{n1},x^{n2},x^{n3},x^{n4}+x^n,x^{n5}+x^{n+1},\mathrm{},1+x^{2n4}||_{x>\sqrt{t}x}.$$
(20)
To see this, it is convenient to rescale temporarily $`t`$ to the unity, to write $`g=\frac{Q_1}{\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ and to consider first the case $`x_1=x_2^1`$. From (13) we get

$`Q_1|_{x_1=x_2^1}`$ $`=`$ $`[(x_1^{n1}x_2^{n2}x_3^{n3}\mathrm{}x_{n1}+\mathrm{perm})(x_2^{n1}x_1^{n2}x_3^{n3}\mathrm{}x_{n1}+\mathrm{perm})]`$ (21)
$``$ $`\{[(1x_1x_3)\mathrm{}(1x_1x_n)][(1x_1^1x_3)\mathrm{}(1x_1^1x_n)]{\displaystyle \underset{j,k=3}{\overset{n}{}}}(1x_jx_k)\}=`$
$`=`$ $`(x_1x_2)[x_3^{n3}x_4^{n4}\mathrm{}x_{n1}+\mathrm{perm}]`$
$``$ $`\{[(1x_1x_3)\mathrm{}(1x_1x_n)][(1x_1^1x_3)\mathrm{}(1x_1^1x_n)]{\displaystyle \underset{j,k=3}{\overset{n}{}}}(1x_jx_k)\}`$
where “perm” refers to the permutations of the powers of $`x_3,x_4,\mathrm{},x_{n1}`$ including signature. By taking $`x_k^{n2}`$ as a common factor in the $`k`$ row of the numerator of (20) for $`k=1`$ to $`n`$, we write:

$`Q_2`$ $`=`$ $`|x^{n1},x^{n2},x^{n3},x^{n4}+x^n,x^{n5}+x^{n+1},\mathrm{},1+x^{2n4}|`$ (22)
$`=`$ $`(x_1x_2\mathrm{}x_n)^{n2}|x,1,y,y^2,\mathrm{},y^{n2}|`$
with $`y_j=x_j+x_j^1`$. If we take $`x_1=x_2^1`$ in this expression and subtract in the determinant the second from the first row, we obtain through the Vandermonde formula (7)

$$Q_2|_{x_1=x_2^1}=(1)^{\frac{(n1)(n2)}{2}}(x_1x_2)(x_3x_4\mathrm{}x_n)^{n2}(y_2y_3)\mathrm{}(y_2y_n)\underset{\stackrel{i,j=3}{i<j}}{\overset{n}{}}(y_iy_j).$$
(23)
The use of the identities

$`(1x_2^1x_j)(1x_2x_j)`$ $`=`$ $`x_j(y_2y_j)`$
$`y_ky_j`$ $`=`$ $`(x_kx_j)^1(x_kx_j)(1x_kx_j)`$ (24)
in (23) transforms the right side of this equation in exactly the last member of (21); therefore $`Q_1|_{x_1=x_2^1}=Q_2|_{x_1=x_2^1}`$. As $`\frac{Q_1}{\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ and $`\frac{Q_2}{\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ are symmetric polynomials, this implies that $`\frac{Q_1}{\mathrm{\Delta }}\frac{Q_2}{\mathrm{\Delta }}=fP`$ where $`P`$ is a symmetric polynomial, but from (12) and the definitions of $`Q_1`$ and $`Q_2`$, one can easily check that the total degree of the left side of this equation is necessarily lower than the total degree of $`f`$, so that $`P=0`$. This concludes the proof of (20).

If we now write

$$g=\underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}G_kt^k$$
(25)
a computation completely analogous to that leading from (14) to (19) allows us to write $`G_k`$ as follows

$$G_k=\underset{𝒬_{k+j,j}}{}(1)^{k+j}(\beta _13,\beta _23,\mathrm{},\beta _j3|\beta _1,\beta _2,\mathrm{},\beta _j),$$
(26)
where $`𝒬_{k+j,j}`$ is the set of partitions of $`k+j`$ with $`j`$ terms and satisfying $`\beta _1>\beta _2>\mathrm{}\beta _j3`$. From (14) and (20), we give the final formula for the desired generating function:

$$F=\frac{|x^{n1},x^{n2},x^{n3},x^{n4}+x^n,x^{n5}+x^{n+1},\mathrm{},1+x^{2n4}|}{|x^{n1},x^{n2}+x^n,x^{n3}+x^{n+1},\mathrm{},1+x^{2n2}|}|_{x>\sqrt{t}x}.$$
(27)
## 3 Differential equations for $`f`$ and $`g`$

We will deduce in this section two differential equations satisfied by $`f`$ and $`g`$. These equations can be taken as the basis for an alternative approach for the computation of these quantities.

In establishing the equations, we will take advantage of two differential operators of a class introduced in , , :

$`D_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{p=1}{\overset{n}{}}}z_{p1}{\displaystyle \frac{}{z_p}}`$
$`D_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[{\displaystyle \underset{p=2}{\overset{n}{}}}z_{p2}{\displaystyle \frac{}{z_p}}+D_1^2]`$
The action of these operators on Schur polynomials can be most simply described in graphical terms: $`D_1`$ applied to the Schur polynomial $`S_\lambda `$ gives the sum of all Schur polynomials whose associated Young diagrams are that of $`S_\lambda `$ with one box removed. $`D_2`$ does similarly but, in this case, the sum is over the Young diagrams obtained by removing two boxes not in the same row in all possible ways.

From (12), we get

$$\mathrm{ln}f=\underset{i<j}{}(x_ix_j+\frac{1}{2}x_i^2x_j^2+\frac{1}{3}x_i^3x_j^3+\mathrm{})$$
(28)
and, therefore

$$f=\mathrm{exp}\{\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{m_k}{k}t^k\},m_k=\underset{i<j}{\overset{n}{}}x_i^kx_j^k$$
(29)
or, alternatively

$$f=\mathrm{exp}\{\frac{1}{2}\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{p_k^2p_{2k}}{k}t^k\},p_k=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}x_i^k.$$
(30)
This gives $`{\displaystyle \frac{f}{p_1}}=p_1tf`$. But $`p_1=z_1`$ and $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{p_1}}=D_1`$ , , hence

$$D_1f=z_1tf$$
(31)
or, using (15)

$$D_1Z_j=z_1Z_{j1}.$$
(32)
To find the differential equation for $`g`$, we use (30) to write

$$(\frac{1}{2}\frac{^2}{p_1^2}\frac{}{p_2})f=[\frac{1}{2}t^2(p_1^2+p_2)t]f$$
(33)
and, as $`z_2=\frac{1}{2}(p_1^2p_2)`$ and $`D_2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{p_1^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{p_2}}`$ , , we conclude that

$$D_2f=[t^2(z_1^2z_2)t]f.$$
(34)
Now,

$$D_2g=D_2(fF)=(D_2f)F+f(D_2F)+(D_1f)(D_1F).$$
(35)
The first term is proportional to $`g`$. The second too: as the diagrams in $`F`$ consist only of two identical lines, we get

$$D_2F=tF.$$
(36)
The third term gives a contribution proportional to $`D_1g`$, because

$$D_1g=D_1(fF)=tz_1g+fD_1F.$$
(37)
The differential equation is therefore

$$D_2g+tz_1D_1g+t^2z_2g=0$$
(38)
or, alternatively

$$D_2G_j+z_1D_1G_{j1}+z_2G_{j2}=0.$$
(39)
Acnowledgments
A.M.P. would like to express his gratitude to the Department of Physics of the University of Oviedo for the hospitality during his stay as a Visiting Professor. The work of W.G.F. has been partially supported by grant BFM 2000 0357 (DGICYT, Spain).