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# Dark and luminous matter in the NGC 3992 group of galaxies

## 1 Introduction

Rotation curves derived from neutral hydrogen observations at the outer regions of spiral galaxies unambiguously show that substantial amounts of dark matter are required (Bosma 1978; Begeman 1987, 1989). Any physically reasonable distribution of this dark matter necessitates the presence of at least some of that in the inner optical disc region, contributing in some degree to the total rotation in that region. Unfortunately, from the observed rotation curve and light distribution one cannot a priori determine the ratio of dark to luminous matter (van Albada et al. 1985). There are arguments, mainly theoretical, that the contribution of the disc has to be maximized, leading to the so called maximum disc hypothesis (van Albada & Sancisi 1986; Salucci et al. 1991; Sellwood & Moore 1999). On the other hand, observations of disc stellar velocity dispersions (Bottema 1993, 1997) lead to the conclusion that the disc contributes, on average, 63% to the total rotation at the position where the disc has its maximum rotation. This finding is supported by a statistical analysis of rotation curve shapes in relation to the compactness of discs (Courteau & Rix 1999). Every detailed rotation curve of any galaxy may give clues as to the ratio of dark to luminous matter in a galaxy. It has been argued that the observed correlation of features in the rotation curve with features in the photometry excludes a sub maximum disc case (van Albada & Sancisi 1986). Since it was already known that NGC 3992 exhibits such specific rotation curve features, this warranted more detailed observations and a proper decomposition of the curve into the contributions of the galactic constituents.

At least a substantial fraction of spiral galaxies has no bar. Yet an isolated cold stellar disc can never be stable (Ostriker & Peebles 1973). Various criteria for galaxies have been put forward that should be obeyed in order to avoid a bar instability. Toomre’s (1964) $`Q`$ criterion for local stability can be applied for a global situation assuming a minimum $`Q`$ value for a stellar disc (Sellwood & Carlberg 1984). Already in 1973 Ostriker & Peebles showed by numerical experiments that a substantial spherical dark halo can stabilize a disc. Their criterion states that $`E_{\mathrm{kin}}/E_{\mathrm{pot}}<0.14`$, or the ratio of the average kinetic energy of a disc to its potential energy should be less than 0.14 in order to be stable. As an alternative to a dark halo, a disc can be stabilized by a substantial bulge (Sellwood & Evans 2001). In addition to adding potential energy the bulge also makes the rotation curve flat in the inner regions, creating an ILR which may inhibit the bar formation mechanism (Toomre 1981). Calculations for a specific set of galaxies by Efstathiou et al. (1982) showed that for

$$\epsilon =\frac{v_{\mathrm{max}}}{\sqrt{GM_{\mathrm{disc}}/h}}1.1,$$
(1)
the disc was unstable to bar formation. This criterion has recently been reviewed and reanalysed by Syer et al. (1999) for a 3D situation. For discs with a ratio of scalelength ($`h`$) to sech-squared thickness $`z_0`$ of five and $`Q`$ = 1.2 at $`R=2.4h`$ they found that the numerical value of 1.1 in Eq. (1) has to be decreased to 0.7. Though this criterion may have its merits, it is difficult to imagine that disc stability does not depend on its stellar velocity dispersion. Hence it may be dangerous to apply it to a randomly observed galaxy.

As one can see, a robust, well established stability criterion does not (yet) exist. Nevertheless, from the criteria just mentioned some general relations can be extracted. A galaxy becomes more unstable when its disc mass to dark matter ratio, or its disc to bulge mass ratio is larger. It is also more unstable when its stellar velocity dispersion is lower. In the extreme one then has a cold, thin, maximum disc situation, which is certainly unstable. Even a disc with $`h/z_0`$ of five, a representative value for spiral galaxies (van der Kruit & Searle 1982), at the maximum disc limit forms a large bar (Bottema & Gerritsen 1997). A fair fraction of galaxies has a bar. At least for the long lived bars it might then be logical to assume that barred galaxies are close to maximum disc while non-barred galaxies are sub maximum, though there is no observational evidence for this assumption. Yet the situation must be more complicated; the stellar velocity dispersion is a factor of importance as is the gas content and formation history of a galaxy.

From basic principles it can be shown that every bar has to end within the corotation radius (Teuben & Sanders 1985). This implies that the angular pattern speed of the bar ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$) always has to be smaller than the angular speed at corotation ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{cr}}`$). A bar is defined as fast when its pattern speed approaches the speed at corotation; it is slow when $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{cr}}`$. Theoretical arguments related to the observed morphology of bars indirectly lead to the conclusion that bars must rotate fast (Sanders & Tubbs 1980; Athanassoula 1992). Recently, by applying the Tremaine & Weinberg (1984) method it has been demonstrated directly by observations of two galaxies (Merrifield & Kuijken 1995; Gerssen et al. 1999) that the bar is indeed a fast rotator.

Observations of neutral hydrogen gas show that in general there is a depression in the H i surface density at the position of the bar. This can be explained because gas in a barred potential will experience strong shocks at the leading side of the bar. As a result gas will be transported inwards (Athanassoula 1992) and the bar region gets depleted of gas. The existence of a severe H i hole then means that for a reasonable amount of time the central region is not disturbed by gas accretion. In addition the bar must be rather long lived in order to transport all the gas to the centre.

A barred disc does not exist on its own but is embedded in a dark halo which should respond to the barred potential in some way. Starting with a fast rotating bar in a nonrotating isotropic dark matter halo Debattista & Sellwood (1998) showed that the bar is quickly slowed down by dynamical friction. At least when the dark halo contributes significantly to the mass in the inner region; for a maximum disc situation this slowing down mechanism has almost disappeared. The initial setup of Debattista & Sellwood is, of course, rather specific. In reality a galaxy will gradually built up and dark matter will acquire rotation by a number of mechanisms (Tremaine & Ostriker 1999). If the dark halo is co-rotating with the bar the dynamical friction process has disappeared. Still it has to be kept in mind that a fast rotating bar cannot exist in a substantial non-rotating dark halo. At this stage let us summarize a number of properties and processes that are important for the existence of a barred structure. Preventing a bar or destroying it can be done by:

* A large non-corotating spherical dark matter (DM) contribution.
* A substantial bulge.
* Large amounts of gas will destroy any triaxiality (Shlosman & Noguchi 1993).
* A high stellar velocity dispersion.

Making or allowing a bar can be done by:

* A limited amount of spherical dark or luminous matter in the inner regions.
* Rotating dark matter.
* Low stellar velocity dispersions or alternatively a thin disc.
* Small amounts of gas (see also Noguchi 1996).

There are a number of neutral hydrogen observations of barred galaxies preferentially of late types. Without trying to be complete we mention NGC 5383 (Sancisi et al. 1979), NGC 4731 (Gottesman et al. 1984), NGC 3359 (Ball 1986), NGC 1365 (Ondrechen & van der Hulst 1989), NGC 1097 (Ondrechen et al. 1989), NGC 1300 (England 1989), and NGC 1073 (England et al. 1990). Observations of NGC 3992 were carried out by Gottesman et al. (1984, hereafter G84) with the VLA. Their FWHM resolution amounted to 23″ in the spatial direction and 41 km s-1 in the velocity direction. They noted a drop in the rotational velocities near the end of the disc light and this drop was ascribed to the effect of a truncation of the disc mass. It is claimed that at least some gas was detected in the bar region with a certain radial velocity, although this might be an artifact of the way the data have been interpreted. The velocity field and fit to that resulted in a systemic velocity of 1046 km s-1, a position angle of 248°, and an inclination of 53°. A rotation curve was determined out to a radius of 5′.

In a later study Hunter et al. (1988) made an additional analysis of these observations. Their aim was to explain the observed spiral arm pattern as a result of gas moving in the barlike potential. A model for NGC 3992 was used employing a rigid potential consisting of a dark halo, a disc, a bar, and an oval distortion beyond the perimeter of the bar. It appeared that this model was not able to explain the observed tightly wound, star-formation arms. Instead a strong two armed spiral structure was generated with large pitch angle. Hunter et al. concluded that: “either the model is incomplete or, other, nondynamical processes cause the spiral arm pattern”.

NGC 3992 was also observed in H i by Verheijen (1997) and by Verheijen & Sancisi (2001) as part of a study of the Ursa Major cluster. In fact, NGC 3992 is one of the most massive members of this small and non-concentrated cluster. Because of the limited integration time Verheijen could only study this galaxy at a resolution of one arcminute. Consequently the derived rotation curve was sparsely sampled. Yet, these observations showed that the rotation curve exhibits some specific features and that neutral hydrogen gas was present rather far beyond the optical edge. When comparing the derived M/L ratios of the galaxies in the Ursa Major cluster, the M/L ratio of NGC 3992 stands out, in the sense that it is a factor of two larger than the average value of the cluster galaxies. These facts motivated a much longer observation aiming to shed more light on several matters. The main aim of this project was to derive a high quality and extended rotation curve for a barred galaxy. Of this rotation curve a decomposition can be made and the result can be compared with that of other galaxies. For example, is there evidence for a specific luminous to dark mass ratio and does that differ from the ratio for non-barred galaxies? Can the large M/L ratio be confirmed and if so can it be explained? More generally, the number of well determined rotation curves is still limited and extension of the sample allows a better (statistical) analysis of galaxy parameters.

For convenience a high quality photograph of NGC 3992 is presented in Fig. 1 and a listing of the main parameters of the four galaxies is given in Table 1. The distance to the UMa cluster as a whole and to NGC 3992 in particular has not yet been determined precisely. Sakai et al. (2000) give a distance to the UMa cluster of 20.7 $`\pm `$ 3.2 Mpc following from a Tully-Fisher analysis using the cepheid distances to local galaxies. On the other hand, for a similar analysis, Tully & Pierce (2000) derive a distance of 18.6 Mpc, probably with the same error as that of Sakai et al. In a recent re-evaluation of the HST distance scale project (Freedman et al. 2001) the distances to the local calibrator galaxies have decreased by $``$ 5% and consequently the distances to UMa of 20.7 and 18.6 Mpc should also be decreased by that amount. As for now, a distance of 18.6 Mpc seems reasonable and has been adopted in the present paper. This distance differs, however, from the 15.5 Mpc used in earlier studies of the UMa cluster by Tully et al. (1996) and by Verheijen (1997).

## 2 Observations and data handling

NGC 3992 and its companions were observed with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope in the period May 1997 to September 1997. The observations lasted for approximately 48 hours divided up into 4 $`\times `$ 12 hour periods with different antenna spacings. Due to maintenance, on average, two of the fourteen telescopes, one movable and one fixed, were not available, which reduces the number of interferometers from 40 to approximately 27. The digital line backend was configured for 64 frequency channels, evenly spaced over a 5 MHz total bandwidth. After Hanning smoothing this resulted in a velocity resolution equal to twice the channel spacing, or 33 km s-1, FWHM. A full listing of the observing parameters is given in Table 2. The NFRA reduction package NEWSTAR was used to do the calibration and fourier transform to a 512 $`\times `$ 512 grid with a pixel size of 4$`\stackrel{}{.}`$32 $`\times `$ 5$`\stackrel{}{.}`$39 $`(\alpha \times \delta )`$. Subsequent data reduction was performed with the GIPSY (Groningen Image Processing SYstem) package.

Line emission of the main galaxy and the three companions was detected in 31 channels. Continuum emission only, was in principle available in 15 channels at the low velocity side of the emission and in 10 channels at the high velocity side. The continuum subtraction was complicated by a strong continuum source at a distance of 34$`\stackrel{}{.}`$0 from NGC 3992, at position 11$`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{h}}56_{}^{\mathrm{m}}39^\mathrm{s}`$: 54°9′48$`\stackrel{}{.}`$8 (RA:dec:1950) with a flux of 1.7 Jy. First, this continuum source was cleaned away by subtracting 50 components with a gain of 0.5 found in a small region around this continuum source. This removed the worst of the grating rings. The rest of the continuum was subtracted by fitting a linear relation to the line free channels at both velocity sides and subtracting the appropriate amount from each channel in between. Next the data were cleaned. Clean components were subtracted until a level of 65% of the noise level. Data were restored by convolving the clean components with a Gaussian beam of 14″$`\times `$ 18″(FWHM, $`\alpha \times \delta `$) and adding the residuals. In this way a cleaned collection of line channels, or data cube, at full resolution was constructed, ready for further analysis. To give an impression of the H i intensity levels, H i extensions and of the position of the companions with respect to the main galaxy, already at this stage a total H i image at full resolution of the whole field is presented in Fig. 2. A detailed description of how this image was constructed can be found in the next section.

The whole field was searched in detail for H i emission other than that from the already known sources. Nothing was found; no unresolved sources above the noise level and no extended sources, nor in the full resolution field nor after smoothing to lower resolution. Considering the noise statistics of the channel maps, the threshold for detecting unresolved sources was put at five times the rms noise level corresponding to H i cloud masses of 3.5 106 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$. As can be seen in Fig. 2 the three companions clearly stand out in H i and display a higher column density than the main galaxy. Thus if there is H i in the field it is associated with a stellar component, there are no free floating H i clouds around, at least not above the present detection limit. It can also be seen that the main galaxy has a faint gas extension around the stellar disc, this contrary to the companions, where the gas ends suddenly at the optical edge. A possible explanation for this is stripping of the gas from the companions when these have passed by, or interacted with NGC 3992.

## 3 The H i distribution

A collection of uncorrelated channel maps smoothed to a resolution of 30″$`\times `$ 30″ is displayed in Fig. 3. The smoothed channels are displayed because only then the gas in the outer regions becomes visible. When inspecting Fig. 3 one can note the regularity of the system. At first glance it looks like the rotation in the outer regions is lower than in the luminous disc region. This is because emission in the disc region already shows up at velocities further away from the systemic velocity than the emission of the outer regions.

A total H i map has been constructed at full resolution and at 30″$`\times `$ 30″ resolution, both by means of the conditional transfer method. Details of this method will now be described for both resolutions. First the full resolution map. At positions in the 30″$`\times `$ 30″ map where the intensity level was higher than three times the $`1\sigma `$ noise level in that map, the data in the full resolution map were retained. Data not meeting this criterion were set to zero. In addition, all remaining positive noise patches in the full resolution maps were inspected, whether above the five sigma level or whether extended. Unresolved patches below this five sigma level were deleted. The remaining signal in each channel was summed to give the flux density as a function of velocity, or the full resolution line profile in Fig. 4. This is the typical double horned profile as observed for normal spiral galaxies. Summing the emission in the data cube along the velocity direction gives the total H i map, shown in Fig. 5, top panel and as a greyscale already given in Fig. 2.

The H i emission at 30″$`\times `$ 30″ resolution was determined as follows: The data cube was smoothed to a resolution of 90″$`\times `$ 90″. Data in the 30″ resolution map were retained there where in the 90″ resolution map data were above the three sigma level (= 0.045 $`M_{\mathrm{}}`$ pc-2). As above, unresolved patches below the five sigma level in the 30″ maps were deleted. The line profile is displayed in Fig. 4, and as can be seen the smoothed maps all contain slightly more emission than the full resolution maps. This is caused by some additional low level emission that has surpassed the $`3\sigma `$ level at 90″ resolution. Adding up all the emission gives a total H i flux of 72.2 Jy km s-1 resulting in a total H i mass of 5.9 109 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$. For the full resolution these numbers are slightly lower at respectively an H i flux of 62.9 Jy km s-1 and total H i mass of 5.1 109 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$. Integration of the data cube along the velocity direction gives the total H i map at 30″ resolution displayed in Fig. 5, bottom panel.

As can be seen in Fig. 5, at the lower resolution additional low level emission shows up in the outer regions. The gas distribution is symmetric with respect to the luminous structure. Large spiral arm density enhancements can not been seen, nor density features which can be associated with the bar. At the rim the distribution might be more patchy, especially at the North West side where the H i is more concentrated in clouds. One very obvious feature which can be recognized immediately, both in Fig. 2 and in Fig. 5 is the central hole at exactly the region of the bar. But how empty is this hole?

Two qualitative tests have been done to determine this emptyness. First, of the full resolution data cube a position velocity (or x,v) slice has been made through the data cube, along the major axis and with a width of the size of the hole. Any emission would then show up as a narrow filament at the position of the galaxy rotation curve. The x,v diagram was inspected visually and nothing could be detected. As a second test the fact was used that near the centre one expects the rotation curve to be steeply rising. Therefore any emission in the hole should be at nearly the same positions in the relevant channel maps and to increase the signal-to-noise these channels can simply be added. After the rotation curve was determined, 21 channels were selected for this test, 10 on either side of the channel with a velocity of 1050 km s-1. These channels were added and the result inspected. At the central position the level and noise characteristics were equal to regions outside the galaxy, meaning that no emission was detected.

It is not straightforward to give a quantitative value for the upper limit of the surface density in the region of the hole. Let’s give it a try. One channel at full resolution has a 1$`\sigma `$ noise level of 0.473 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{pc}^2`$. Adding $`N`$ channels which have been Hanning smoothed, each having a noise of $`\sigma _h`$ gives a total noise of $`\frac{4}{\sqrt{6}}\sqrt{N\frac{3}{4}}\sigma _h`$. So adding ten channels all with the same noise gives a total noise level of 2.35 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{pc}^2`$, which is for one position on the sky. One expects approximately that, if added, those ten channels would fill half the hole, which can be covered by $``$ 16 beams. Then a $`1\sigma `$ upper limit for the surface density in the hole is found of approximately $`2.35/\sqrt{16}`$ = 0.6 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{pc}^2`$. There are other ways of reasoning to estimate the upper limit, but all arrive at the same or at a larger number.

To obtain the surface density as a function of radius, the observed total H i map has been averaged on elliptic annuli. These annuli were given the same orientation as for the fit of a collection in tilted rings to the velocity field in order to derive the rotation curve (see Sect. 6). For radii less than 200″ the full resolution map was used with widths at the major axis of 10″ and for larger radii the smoothed map with widths of 20″. The average value of each ellipse was deprojected to face-on. The result for the two sides separately and averaged is shown in Fig. 6. It can be seen that the H i emission for this galaxy is concentrated is a torus with a low level extension to large radii. Note that the Holmberg radius is at 250″ and at that radius the transition occurs from a high H i density to the low level extension.

## 4 The continuum

The continuum image has been made by averaging the channels free of line emission. This image has been cleaned to below the noise level and smoothed to a 30″$`\times `$ 30″ resolution. Even then the emission level at the position of the galaxy is low; the peak emission is at six times the noise level of 0.18 K. The image is displayed in Fig. 7 in greyscale and in contours superposed on the optical image. Despite the low level of emission a few associations between continuum and the optical picture can be made. There is a continuum enhancement at the position of the bulge. Furthermore, continuum is associated with spiral arms especially those at the South West side. A strong unresolved source with a flux of 1.5 mJy can be seen in the South East on a spiral arm. This source might originate from a star formation region though an association with an optical counterpart is not obvious. It is certainly too bright to be produced by a single supernova remnant. An alternative explanation is a background source. The total continuum flux of the galaxy amounts to 43.2 mJy being quite normal for galaxies of the size of NGC 3992.

## 5 Construction of the velocity field

At first, several line profiles distributed over the galaxy have been inspected by eye. It appears that almost all profiles are symmetric. In addition there are no regions in the galaxy where there is a systematic skewness of the profiles in any velocity direction. Hence there is no need to make a fit by a model profile other than that of a Gaussian.

Two velocity fields were constructed, one at full resolution and one at 30″$`\times `$ 30″ resolution. For both fields the method of construction was equal and will be described presently. The Gaussian fitting procedure needs decent initial estimates for the profiles. To that aim, a Gaussian fit was made to the conditionally transferred channels. The resulting parameters were then fed to the fitting procedure for the whole data cube. In this way it is assured that only line profiles are found there where it was judged already before where the H i gas was situated. If the initial estimate had a dispersion of less than 5 km s-1 or a peak amplitude less than 1.5 the noise level, it was discarded.

With these estimates a fit to the complete data cube was made. Again, results with dispersions less than 5 km s-1 and amplitudes less than 1.5 times the noise level were judged to be unphysical and were rejected. The velocity field was inspected by eye to check for continuity of the data. It appeared necessary to remove only a small number, between 10 and 20, deviating pixels for both velocity fields. These pixels either had a strongly aberrant velocity or a velocity dispersion larger than 65 km s-1 and were nearly all situated at the low intensity edges.

Of the resulting dispersions of the profiles, 70% had a value between 5 and 25 km s-1, 25% between 25 and 45 km s-1, and 5 % above 45 km s-1. The instrumental FWHM velocity resolution of 33.3 km s-1 equals an instrumental dispersion $`(1\sigma )`$ resolution of 14.1 km s-1 and thus most of the profiles are not resolved in velocity by the telescope. This is a reflection of the inherently low gas velocity dispersion in galactic discs, between 6 and 12 km s-1 (Kamphuis 1993; Dickey et al. 1990).

The velocity fields at both resolutions are displayed in Fig. 8, top half. In general the velocity field of NGC 3992 is astonishingly regular. Large warp or bar signatures are not present. Some streaming motions can be observed along spiral arms, especially on the North West side.

## 6 The rotation curve

The rotation curve is determined by fitting a tilted ring model to the velocity field (Begeman, 1989). It is assumed that the H i gas can be described by a set of concentric rings. Each ring has a certain position, systemic velocity, rotation velocity, and two orientation angles: inclination and position angle. The widths and separations of the rings were taken to be 10″ for the full resolution data and 20″ for the data with resolution of 30″. When fitting the model velocity field to the observed field a weighting factor has been taken proportional the the cosine of the angle measured from the major axis.

An iterative strategy was followed. First a guess has been made of the rotation, inclinations, and position angles for all rings. With these parameters held fixed the central positions and the systemic velocities of the rings were determined. These parameters appeared to be nicely constant as a function of radius and were fixed at (RA, dec, $`v_{\mathrm{sys}}`$) of (11h 55m 0$`\stackrel{s}{.}`$59, 53° 39′ 10$`\stackrel{}{.}`$9, 1049 $`\pm `$ 2 km s-1). The optical position of the bulge was measured and lies within 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$2 from the kinematic position while both positions can be determined with an accuracy of approximately 2″. Consequently the bulge is exactly at the kinematic centre even though that was determined by an extrapolation inwards because of the H i hole. This proves the overall regularity and symmetry of the velocity field.

Further steps in the iteration are illustrated in Fig. 9. As a first step the remaining parameters, PAs, inclinations, and rotational velocities were left free and the resulting position angles were considered. As can be seen in Fig. 9, both for the full resolution and the smoothed data the position angle slightly changes as a function of radius. In addition, for the full resolution data there is a wiggle superposed which is caused by the spiral arm streaming motions. In first instance a constant position angle of 248° was assumed and rotation curve determined. However, for that case the residual velocity field showed a large scale systematic pattern which could be attributed to a wrong position angle. Therefore it was decided to adopt a position angle which is slightly changing as a function of radius, as indicated by the dashed line in figures 9b and 9d. Considering the errors on the data points this change seems indeed real. Moreover, in this case the systematics in the residual velocity field disappear. As a second step the position angles were fixed and the inclinations and rotational velocities were left as free parameters. The fitting procedure was rerun and resulting inclinations were considered. For the full resolution data there appears to be a slight increase in the inclination from 57 to 60° between radii of 280 to 320″. However, for the smoothed data this increase is not present and this effect in the full resolution data probably has to be ascribed to patchiness and small irregularities in the velocity field at high resolution. Over all, the data are consistent with a constant inclination of 57° $`\pm `$ 1° indicated by the dashed line in figures 9a and 9c. This constant value has been adopted. As a third and final step in the iteration, having the PAs and inclinations fixed, the rotation velocity was fitted of which the result is displayed in Fig. 9, lower panel.

At radii between 270 and 320″ which is at the outermost radii where the full resolution observations still give rotational values, the full resolution rotation velocities are lower by some 6 km s-1 compared to the smoothed data. A possible explanation is that at those positions the full resolution only pics up the brightest emission regions at the spiral arms. Velocities over there might deviate somewhat from the average velocities because of streaming motions associated with the spiral arms. Also at these radii the stellar disc ends, which might have some influence on the radial velocities when changing from a situation of stars plus gas to pure gas arms. Anyway, from 240″ outwards the smoothed data have been adopted as best representation of the rotation. Inwards from 240″ until 70″, where the hole begins, the full resolution rotation is determined with sufficient certainty. As a summary the rotation curve data are given in Table 3.

The least squares fitting method gives errors, but these are only formal errors, which are not always a good representation of the true deviation from the data. To come up with a more realistic error of the rotational velocity, the fitting procedure has been repeated for the receding and approaching side of the galaxy separately. Positions and orientation angles were kept fixed at the same values as for the whole galaxy and rotation velocities were determined. The difference in rotation of the two sides gives a better representation of the true error. The final error is then given by the quadratic sum of the formal fit error plus half the difference between the two sides, plus the error generated by an error of 1° in the inclination. These values are also given in Table 3 and in Fig. 9. To illustrate the reliability and consistency of the method, in Fig. 10, the rotation curve, converted to radial velocities is overplotted on a position-velocity cut through the smoothed data along the major axis. Note that the globally determined rotational values may deviate slightly from the local kinematics given in x,v diagram.

The present rotational parameters have been compared with the ones of Verheijen & Sancisi (2001). They have produced a rotation curve from the velocity field at a resolution of only 60″ and therefore they have a rather course sampling of the rotation curve. Only five independent and reliable PA and inclination values could be determined between 160 and 330″ from which a constant value of the orientation angles was concluded. The rotation curve deduced goes out to 400″ and is qualitatively the same as determined presently but shows a lot less details and features.

A comparison was made with the observations and derived kinematics in the paper of G84. They have observed NGC 3992 with the VLA at a FWHM resolution of 23″ spatially and of 41.4 km s-1 in velocity. Their rotation curve extends out to a radius of 300″ and is similar in shape as the present curve. There is a difference, however; G84 determined an inclination of 53$`\stackrel{}{.}`$4 which is smaller than our value of 57°. Consequently G84’s rotational velocities are a bit larger. It is claimed, though uncertain, that there is a small amount of gas with associated radial velocities detected in the central hole. In our opinion this detection is not real and is probably an artifact of the employed moment method to construct the velocity field.

A model velocity field has been created assuming the fitted rotation curve parameters. This field was subtracted from the observed velocity field producing the residual velocity field which is depicted in Fig. 8. As can be seen, in the full resolution case there are some residuals associated with the streaming motions along the spiral arms. Other systematic residuals are not present demonstrating that a proper rotation curve fit has been made. The random deviations are generally smaller than 10 km s-1 except for a few patches bordering on the central hole. Could these deviating patches have been generated by the central bar?

## 7 The influence of the bar

The dynamical influence of the bar has been determined by calculating the potential field generated by the luminous distribution. To that aim the I-band image of NGC 3992 has been properly sky subtracted and defects and stars were interpolated over. The image was projected to face-on using a PA of 68° and inclination of 57° following from the H i kinematics. As a bonus one can quite accurately measure the physical length of the bar in the face-on image which amounts to 145″. Next the potential image was calculated numerically and ellipses have been fitted to it. The resulting ellipticities $`(ϵ=1b/a)`$ as a function of the major axis of the ellipse are given in Fig. 11. When inspecting Fig. 11 it is obvious that the ellipticity of the bar potential is largest at a radius of 60″, at smaller radii the bulge makes the potential rounder while at larger radii the galactic disc takes over.

The bar ends at 72$`\stackrel{}{.}`$5 yet the extent of its elliptic potential does not reach beyond approximately 90″. As can be seen in Fig. 11, there is only a small overlap between the elliptic bar potential and presence of H i gas, roughly between 70 and 90″, which is just at the position of the deviating patches of the velocity field bordering the central hole. It is therefore likely that these aberrations are indeed generated by the bar. On the other hand, judging the ellipticity of the potential, the bar will not generate a distortion of the velocity field for radii larger than 90″. Consequently the derived rotation curve is beyond dispute at those radii. Even at the positions further in, the residuals of the velocity field are so moderate that the rotational values are still reasonably well determined.

## 8 Decomposition of the rotation curve

The observed rotation curve can be decomposed into the contributions of the individual galactic mass constituents (van Albada et al. 1985; Kent 1986, 1987; Begeman et al. 1991). As usual, for the luminous components a constant M/L ratio is adopted. Then for each luminous component a mass model can be constructed proportional to the light distribution which is given by the photometry. The gravitational influence of the gas is included and a dark halo is needed to explain the large rotation in the outer parts of galaxies. The decomposition of the observed rotation curve can then be achieved by a least squares fitting procedure where the individual rotational contributions of disc, bulge, gas, and dark halo are determined. Such a fit is, however, far from unique (van Albada et al. 1986); in general a range of M/L ratios for the disc (and bulge) gives an equally good fit to the data. Additional information or assumptions are needed. One such assumption is the maximum disc hypothesis which states that the contribution of the disc to the rotation should be scaled up as high as possible and so assigning the maximum possible M/L ratio to the disc. On the other hand, observations of the stellar velocity dispersions of galactics discs suggest that the maximum contribution of the disc to the rotation is, on average, 63% at the position where the disc has its maximum velocity (Bottema 1993). As discussed in the introduction, there is other evidence that for normal and specifically for the low surface brightness galaxies the maximum disc hypothesis cannot hold. Below we will investigate the possibilities for NGC 3992.

Photometry in the B, R, I, and $`K^{}`$ band is given by Tully et al. (1996), of which the I and $`K^{}`$ data are reproduced in Fig. 12. Since the $`K^{}`$ data do not extent very far out, the I band data are used for the mass modelling. Note that in the inner regions the I and $`K^{}`$ photometry are nearly identical and hence there are no large population and dust gradients in the inner regions and the I band gives a good representation of the actual mass distribution. The total luminosity of NGC 3992 in the I band is identical to within the errors with the total luminosity derived by Héraudau & Simien (1996) which gives confidence that the absolute calibration of the surface brightness is correct. The photometry has been cut off at a radius of 250″ but the calculated rotation curve does not depend on the exact position of the cutoff as long as it is at or beyond this 250″.

For the gaseous component a surface distribution equal to that of the H i is taken (see Fig. 6), multiplied with a factor 1.4 to account for Helium. The gas disc is adopted to be infinitely thin. For the dark halo a pseudo isothermal sphere generally provides a satisfactory model (Carignan & Freeman 1985) for which the density distribution $`\rho (R)`$ is given by

$$\rho _\mathrm{h}=\rho _\mathrm{h}^0\left[1+\frac{R^2}{R_{\mathrm{core}}^2}\right]^1,$$
(2)
with a rotation law

$$v_\mathrm{h}=v_\mathrm{h}^{\mathrm{max}}\sqrt{1\frac{R_{\mathrm{core}}}{R}\mathrm{arctan}\left(\frac{R}{R_{\mathrm{core}}}\right)},$$
(3)
where $`R_{\mathrm{core}}`$ is the core radius related to the maximum rotation of the halo $`v_\mathrm{h}^{\mathrm{max}}`$ by

$$v_\mathrm{h}^{\mathrm{max}}=\sqrt{4\pi G\rho _\mathrm{h}^0R_{\mathrm{core}}^2}.$$
(4)
In this section two situations will be considered. At first one where the luminous mass is all in a disc like distribution. The disc is given a locally isothermal sech-squared vertical distribution (van der Kruit & Searle 1981) with a $`z_0`$ scale height parameter of 700 pc. Secondly a decomposition of the photometric profile is made in a bulge and a disc. This is done by extrapolating the disc inwards from the relative exponential section between radii of 50 to 130″. This disc is subtracted from the total light to obtain the bulge surface brightness for radii less than 47″ as has been illustrated in Fig. 12. Note that the bar extends out to 72$`\stackrel{}{.}`$5 and hence in the bar region the bulge slowly starts to build up coming closer to the centre as suggested by the optical image. For the disc again the same sech-squared density distribution is assumed while the bulge is taken to be spherical. Purpose of the bulge/disc decomposition is to investigate whether and how much fit parameters will change compared to a pure disc fit. To that aim the decomposition need not be very precise. There is a difference between the bulge and disc concerning the conversion to face-on brightnesses. The photometric profile of the disc along the major axis is converted to face-on magnitudes by multiplying with a cosine(inclination) factor. Since the bulge is assumed to be spherical no conversion to face-on is needed. At this stage, no corrections for internal and galactic absorption have been made and consequently all derived M/L ratios are those as observed. The rotation of the stellar and gas disc is calculated by the prescription of Casertano (1983) while the rotation of the bulge is given by the equations of Kent (1986).

The decomposition of the observed rotation curve is performed by fitting the sum of the rotation curves of the components to the observed data in a least squares sense. In that way the best fit is designated as the situation of minimum $`\chi ^2`$ value. However, a least squares fit procedure assumes that the fitting function is known a priori and the data points scatter in a Gaussian way around that function. For rotation curves that is not valid. Firstly a rotational functionality for the halo is adopted which need not be correct. Secondly the procedure to determine the rotation is an approximation in the sense that azimuthal symmetry is assumed with no in or outflow. For example spiral arms can produce small irregularities, which may lead to small systematic deviations from the actual rotation law. Because of these matters the resulting minimum $`\chi ^2`$ value is only a limited indicator of the quality of the fit. In general one has to make an inspection by eye to judge the quality of the fit, taking the errors of the individual data points into account.

First the decomposition results for a disc only situation will be considered. Three parameters are free and have been fitted simultaneously: the core radius and maximum rotation of the dark halo, and the M/L ratio of the disc. The result is illustrated in Fig. 13a and has a disc with an I-band mass-to-light ratio of 1.79 $`\pm `$ 0.19. Further numerical values are given now and for the following fits in Table 4. Surprisingly the fit finds a least squares minimum for a non maximum disc situation. This is surprising because in most cases when rotation curves are decomposed a least squares fit tends to the maximum disc solution while other solutions are nearly equally as good (van Albada & Sancisi 1986). The maximum rotation of the disc is 162 km s-1 which amounts to 60% of the observed maximum rotation. This is close to the 63% found from the study of stellar velocity dispersions by Bottema (1993). If the disc rotational contribution is forced below 50% the agreement between data and model rotation rapidly becomes worse. For such a situation features in the photometry cannot be reconciled adequately with the accompanying features in the observed rotation curve.

The photometric radial profile clearly indicates that NGC 3992 is highly non exponential, contrary to claims by Elmegreen & Elmegreen (1985). This galaxy is of an extreme Freeman type II (Freeman 1970) and the maximum of the rotation does not occur at the usual 2.2 scalelengths, if a scalelength can be defined at all. Instead the relative exponential part between 50 and 130″ followed by the more steep decline in brightness beyond, results in a specific shape of the rotation curve of the luminous matter as shown by the long dashed line in Fig. 13. This curve has a maximum around 13 kpc and a long linearly decreasing section between 17 and 24 kpc. The observed drop in the rotation curve is then not a consequence of a truncation feature of the disc as suggested by G84 but simply a consequence of the non-exponentiality of the disc. Also the photometry does not suggest a sudden drop in brightness at a radius of $``$ 19 kpc = 211″ needed to explain such a drop at the observed radii between 19 and 24 kpc. Some experimenting has been done by taking cut offs in the photometry at 250″ = 22.5 kpc and at larger radii. But this is already so far out that an associated drop in the rotation curve cannot be noticed any more (Casertano 1983).

There is a secondary minimum in the least squares fit, which is illustrated in Fig. 13b. It is in principle a maximum disc fit with a dark halo having a core radius comparable to the maximum radius to where the rotation curve is determined. Compared to the previous fit, the outer data points seem to be better represented. In the stellar disc regions however, the fit is worse and at certain positions not compatible with the data. The reduced minimum $`\chi ^2`$ value for this fit is 1.94, for the previous fit it was 1.22. The mass-to-light ratio in the I band, uncorrected for absorption amounts to 4.71 $`\pm `$ 0.11 for this maximum disc fit.

When a bulge is added to the system there is one more free parameter, namely the M/L ratio of the bulge. This parameter has been constrained in two ways; a situation where the M/L ratio is taken equal to that of the disc (see Fig. 13c) and a situation where the maximum rotation of the bulge is fixed at the flat level of the rotation curve. The fit is performed and dark halo parameters and disc M/L ratios follow and are given in Table 4. The reduced $`\chi ^2`$ value for both bulge M/L ratios are equal. What one can achieve by adding a bulge is some mass transfer from the dark halo to the bulge resulting in a larger core radius compared to the disc only case. Presently core radii are 1.8 and 3.7 kpc compared to the 1.16 kpc when only a disc is present. When the M/L ratio of the bulge is not constrained the fitting procedure generates a result given in Fig. 13d which is analogous to the maximum disc fit in Fig. 13b. This fit is actually better then the one where the M/L ratio of the bulge is constrained in the sense that the reduced $`\chi ^2`$ value is slightly lower. However the M/L ratios are substantial; 5.1 and 4.2 for the bulge and disc respectively. So adding a bulge has the side effect that one is again close to the situation for other rotation curve decompositions: nearly equally good fits can be made for a whole range of disc contributions to the total rotation. Other indicators are then needed to determine the M/L ratio of the disc, like observations of disc stellar velocity dispersions or population synthesis arguments.

One can conclude that the features in the rotation curve are generated by the strong non-exponentiality of the photometry. Still, even with the determined detailed rotation curve of NGC 3992 it is not possible to get a tight constraint on the disc contribution to the total rotation or on the M/L ratios of disc and bulge. There is only a slight preference for the disc to be sub maximal.

## 9 The mass-to-light ratio

To put the mass-to-light ratio of NGC 3992 into perspective one should compare it with values of other galaxies. Palunas & Williams (2000) give maximum disc $`M/L`$ I-band ratios for a sample of 74 spiral galaxies. The luminosities of their galaxies have been corrected for absorption as if observed face-on. Unfortunately this correction does not take into account the demonstrated dependence of such a correction on total luminosity of a galaxy (Giovanelli et al. 1997; Tully et al. 1998). In practice Palunas & Williams make a correction more or less as if all their galaxies belong to the most luminous category. To circumvent this problem, 32 galaxies of the sample were selected having a 10log$`(2v_0)`$ $`>`$ 2.6 or a maximum rotation approximately larger than 200 km s-1. For that subsample the average $`(M/L)_I^{i0}`$ (so corrected to face-on) is 3.1 $`\pm `$ 0.7 with a total range of 2.2 to 4.3. There is another problem, however. The sample is concentrated in the great attractor region and galaxies or groups of galaxies may have large peculiar velocities rendering the adopted Hubble flow distances uncertain. For example, galaxies in the vicinity of the Centaurus cluster have a median $`(M/L)_I^{i0}`$ of 1.8 $`\pm `$ 0.6 while galaxies near the Hydra cluster have a median $`(M/L)_I^{i0}`$ of 3.4 $`\pm `$ 1.0.

As mentioned in the introduction, the $`K^{}`$-band rotation curve decomposition of NGC 3992 by Verheijen (1997) indicates that this galaxy has an abnormally large $`(M/L)_K^{}`$ value compared to the other HSB galaxies of the UMa cluster. Is this also the case for the present more precise rotation curve and the I-band photometry? In Paper II (Bottema 2002) a conversion is made to absorption corrected face-on $`(M/L)_I^{i0}`$ maximum disc values for ten UMa cluster HSB galaxies not including NGC 3992. The average value of these ten galaxies, $`(M/L)_I^{i0}=1.65`$ with a range of 0.7 to 2.2. The same absorption procedure for NGC 3992 requires that the observed $`(M/L)_I`$ ratio has to be divided by a factor 1.27. Then the maximum disc fit (Fig. 13b) has a $`(M/L)_I^{i0}`$ of 3.68 $`\pm `$ 0.1.

Compared to the other HSB galaxies of the UMa cluster the mass-to-light ratio is very large, also in the I-band. However, when compared with $`(M/L)_I^{i0}`$ = 3.1 $`\pm `$ 0.7 for the luminous galaxies of the Palunas & Williams sample the value of NGC 3992 is still large, but not exceptional. When the notion holds that barred galaxies are closer to maximum disc, then one would expect (on average) that maximum disc $`M/L`$ ratios of barred galaxies are determined to be smaller than those of non-barred galaxies. Consequently NGC 3992 contradicts this notion. Remains to be explained why the mass-to-light ratios of the different clusters can be so different.

A comparison with $`M/L`$ ratios generated by population synthesis models is in principle not possible. Those ratios depend on the employed IMF, and in particular on the low mass end of the IMF. Changing the functionality or the low mass cutoff also changes the $`M/L`$ ratio (Jablonka & Arimoto 1992; Bottema 1997; Bell & de Jong 2001). A detailed discussion of the relation of NGC 3992 to its companions and its position on the Tully-Fisher relation is deferred to Paper II.

## 10 Discussion, outlook, and conclusions

The present observations demonstrate that the amount of gas in the bar region is very small. It is likely that any available gas has been transported inwards as a result of shocks at the leading side of the bar (Athanassoula 1992). Since the gas density is so low this implies that the bar must be rather long lived in order to have had enough time to transport all the gas to the centre. In addition this means that the galaxy, at least the central region, must be undisturbed which is substantiated by the very regular optical image of the galaxy.

Even though NGC 3992 exhibits some specific features in its rotation curve, a decomposition cannot give a tight constraint on the contribution of the disc to the total rotation. As noted above, the determined maximum disc M/L ratio is rather large compared to other galaxies while one might have expected the opposite. For such a problem there is always a way out: put NGC 3992 at a larger distance and so behind the UMa cluster. To make the M/L ratio equal to that of the highest values of the other but similar galaxies of the cluster, the distance to NGC 3992 has to be increased from 18.6 to $``$ 24 Mpc. To make the M/L ratio equal to the average value of the other HSB galaxies, the distance needs to be $``$ 28 Mpc. That distance would still be compatible with the position of NGC 3992 and the position of its companions on the Tully-Fisher relation (see Paper II).

In a recent numerical study of normal galaxies, including gas and star formation (Bottema, in preparation) it is demonstrated that for discs with an average thickness the bar instability sets in for $`v_{\mathrm{disc}}^{\mathrm{max}}/v_{\mathrm{obs}}^{\mathrm{max}}0.8`$. On the other hand for a relatively thin disc, which implies a disc with a low stellar velocity dispersion, the bar instability already occurs at lower $`v_{\mathrm{disc}}^{\mathrm{max}}/v_{\mathrm{obs}}^{\mathrm{max}}`$ values. Therefore, if NGC 3992 would have a less massive disc the formation of the galaxy must have been rather specific. Although we now enter the realm of speculation, one might for example imagine a slowly and gently forming disc with modest gas content. Star formation is low and disc heating by the few molecular clouds proceeds slowly. In such a cold stellar disc, even if it is not maximal a bar can be generated and in the absence of substantial gas accretion can remain for a time comparable to the lifetime of the galaxy.

To further investigate the matter of bar existence and formation one should resort to numerical calculations. As mentioned above the main parameters governing the bar instability of a disc are the ratio of dark to luminous matter and the disc thickness. Unfortunately matters are more complicated because the past history of a galaxy will be of influence on its present morphology.

Not only for NGC 3992 but also for galaxies in general the main question which remains unanswered is: What is the precise ratio of dark to luminous matter? With the advent of large telescopes it now becomes feasible to do more detailed and more extensive observations to determine the stellar velocity dispersions of galactic discs. In that way the results for the sample of Bottema (1993) should be checked and extended.

Because of the large amount of observational material it was decided to split up the description of the NGC 3992 group in two parts. This part (Paper I) deals with the main galaxy and focuses on its barred nature and mass distribution. In Paper II the observations of the three small companions are described. Velocity fields and rotation curves are derived and rotation curve decompositions have been made. For all the four galaxies of the group an analysis is presented of colours, M/L ratios, and position of the galaxies in the TF relation of the Ursa Major cluster.

Finally a compilation of the main conclusions of this paper:

Detailed observations in the neutral hydrogen line have been made of the large barred spiral galaxy NGC 3992 and its three small companion galaxies, UGC 6923, UGC 6940, and UGC 6969.

In general the H i distribution of NGC 3992 is regular; it has a faint radial H i extension outside its stellar disc.

There is a pronounced central H i hole in the gas distribution at exactly the radial extent of the bar.

It is likely that any available gas has been transported inwards by the bar. Because of the emptyness of the hole no major gas accretion events can have occurred in a recent galactic period.

The distortions generated by the bar on the velocity field are limited to its proximity and are only minor.

From the velocity field a detailed and extended rotation curve has been derived which shows some distinct features.

These distinct features can be explained by the non-exponential radial light distribution of NGC 3992.

A rotation curve decomposition gives a slight preference for a sub maximal disc, though a range of disc contributions until a maximum disc situation can give a nearly equally good representation of the rotation curve.

In case of such a maximum disc the mass-to-light ratio is large but not exceptional.

###### Acknowledgements.

The observations presented in this paper were obtained with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) which is operated by the Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy (NFRA). We thank R. Sancisi, J. Gerssen, and I. Garcia-Ruiz for insightful discussions. R.B. thanks the Kapteyn Institute for hospitality and support.


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# Imprint of SNO neutral current data on the solar neutrino problem

## Abstract

We perform a global analysis in the framework of two active neutrino oscillations of all solar neutrino data, including the recent SNO day and night spectra (comprised of the charged current (CC), elastic scattering (ES) and neutral current (NC) events), the Super-Kamiokande (SK) day and night spectra (from 1496 days) and the updated SAGE results. We find that the Large Mixing Angle (LMA) solution is selected at the 99% C.L.; the best-fit parameters are $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2=5.6\times 10^5`$ eV2 and $`\theta =32^{}`$. No solutions with $`\theta \pi /4`$ are allowed at the 5$`\sigma `$ C.L. Oscillations to a pure sterile state are excluded at 5.3$`\sigma `$, but a sizeable sterile neutrino component could still be present in the solar flux.

preprint:   MADPH–02-1265 AMES-HET-02-03 hep-ph/0204253

The end of the era of the solar neutrino problem is on the horizon. Neutrino oscillations are a compelling explanation of the solar neutrino deficit relative to the Standard Solar Model  found by several experiments . The SNO experiment has provided cogent evidence in favor of this hypothesis by separately measuring the incident $`\nu _e`$ flux via the CC reaction and the total active neutrino flux via the NC reaction in the same energy range . With the continued accumulation of solar neutrino data, the LMA solution has become the most favored. If LMA is in fact the solution, the ongoing KamLAND experiment  will provide a precise and SSM-independent measurement of the oscillation parameters by measuring the suppression and distortions of the $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ flux emerging from the surrounding nuclear reactors . Aside from a possible complication of partial oscillations to sterile neutrinos, the thirty year old solar neutrino problem will be solved.

Here we assess the extent to which the recent SNO results home in on an unique oscillation solution by performing a global analysis of all solar neutrino data in a two neutrino framework. There is little difference between a three neutrino analysis and an effective two neutrino analysis because the mixing between the solar and atmospheric scales is known to be small . We first show through a model-independent analysis that pure active to sterile oscillations are excluded at high confidence and then proceed with a global analysis involving only active flavors.

A universal sum rule that holds for arbitrary active-sterile oscillation admixtures has been derived  which relates the NC flux at SNO to the CC flux at SNO and the neutrino flux measured at SK with elastic scattering:

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{NC}=[\mathrm{\Phi }_{SK}(1r)\mathrm{\Phi }_{CC}]/r,$$
(1)
where $`r\sigma _{\nu _\mu ,\nu _\tau }/\sigma _{\nu _e}`$ is the ratio of the $`\nu _{\mu ,\tau }`$ to $`\nu _e`$ elastic scattering cross sections on electrons. Above the 5 MeV threshold of the two experiments, $`r=1/6.48`$ and the relation becomes

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{NC}=6.48\mathrm{\Phi }_{SK}5.48\mathrm{\Phi }_{CC}.$$
(2)
The values from the data (assuming an undistorted 8B spectrum ), for the left and right-hand sides of Eq. (2) are, respectively,

$$5.09\pm 0.62,5.58\pm 0.71$$
(3)
showing agreement between the data and the sum rule. The fact that the two values have similar percentage uncertainties ($``$ 12-13%) shows that the accuracy of the SNO NC measurement is already comparable to that which can be inferred from the SNO CC and SK data.

The SNO NC rate is a measure of the flux of active neutrinos in the high energy part of the solar neutrino spectrum. If an active-sterile admixture is responsible for the solar neutrino deficit,

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_{NC}}{\mathrm{\Phi }_{SSM}}=\beta \frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_{SSM}\mathrm{\Phi }_{\nu _s}}{\mathrm{\Phi }_{SSM}},$$
(4)
with measured value (see Table I),

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_{NC}}{\mathrm{\Phi }_{SSM}}=1.01\pm 0.12.$$
(5)
Here $`\beta `$ is a normalization of the 8B flux with respect to the central value of the SSM prediction $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{SSM}=5.05\times 10^6`$ cm-2s-1 and $`\beta \mathrm{\Phi }_{\nu _s}`$ is the total sterile neutrino flux to which the electron neutrinos oscillate***As in the SNO analysis  we conservatively adopt the SSM 8B flux of BPB2000  since the $`S_{17}(0)`$ determination  used in Ref.  is being reanalyzed .. Since the measured $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{NC}`$ is consistent with the SSM prediction, we impose the SSM constraint $`\beta =1\pm 0.18`$, and obtain

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_{\nu _s}}{\mathrm{\Phi }_{SSM}}=P(\nu _e\nu _s)=0.01\pm 0.22.$$
(6)
While the central value of the SNO NC rate suggests a solution with oscillations only to active flavors, the uncertainty is too large to rule out a substantial sterile neutrino flux on this basis aloneAssuming an LMA solution and a small sterile admixture, a combination of KamLAND and SNO CC data can determine $`\beta `$ to 11% . This uncertainty is still too large to eliminate the possibility of a significant sterile component in the solar flux..

To see this freedom from another angle, we return to the approach of Ref. . Of the neutrinos that oscillate, the fraction that oscillate to active neutrinos is

$$\mathrm{sin}^2\alpha =\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_{NC}\mathrm{\Phi }_{CC}}{\beta \mathrm{\Phi }_{SSM}\mathrm{\Phi }_{CC}}=1.01\pm 0.34.$$
(7)
Thus, the evidence for transitions to active flavors is at the 3$`\sigma `$ C.L. However, large sterile fractions are allowed even at the 2$`\sigma `$ C.L. See Fig. 1 for illustration. The dark-shaded and light-shaded regions enclose the values of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{NC}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{CC}`$ allowed by the SSM at 1$`\sigma `$ for $`\mathrm{sin}^2\alpha =1`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}^2\alpha =0.5`$, respectively. The lines through the center of these bands correspond to the central value of the SSM 8B flux prediction. The region above the diagonal, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{NC}=\mathrm{\Phi }_{CC}`$, is forbidden because $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{CC}>\mathrm{\Phi }_{NC}`$ is impossible. The measured SNO CC and NC rates are marked by a cross. Even a doubling of the widths of the SSM bands and the SNO rate uncertainties (effectively 2$`\sigma `$) allows large sterile fractions.

We emphasize that a large sterile neutrino flux is viable not only for an analysis of the total rates, but also when the SK day and night spectra are included (contrary to the assertion in Ref. ). For the issue in question, the effect of imposing the SSM 8B flux constraint is equivalent to including the day and night spectra: large values of $`\beta `$ are not allowed and the best-fit value of $`\mathrm{sin}^2\alpha `$ is close to pure active oscillations. That this is the case can be seen from Fig. 4 of Ref.  (8B flux constraint applied) and Fig. 2 of Ref.  (day and night spectra used). The reason for this correlation is that the day and night spectra rule out a large day-night effect, which is the same region of the LMA solution (low $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$) that favors large $`\beta `$ for small $`\mathrm{sin}^2\alpha `$. Therefore in our rate analysis, imposing the 8B flux constraint should yield the same effect as including the SK day and night spectra, and we see from Eq. (7) that a large sterile flux is still allowed.

In the above analysis, pure active and pure sterile oscillation solutions are treated on an equal footing. If instead we use the a priori $`\beta `$-independent criterion that for a pure sterile oscillation solution,

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{NC}=\mathrm{\Phi }_{CC}$$
(8)
(the diagonal of Fig. 1), then such a solution is allowed only at the 5.3$`\sigma `$ C.L. In light of the strong evidence from SNO that oscillations to a pure sterile state are not responsible for the solar anomaly, we hereafter only consider oscillations between active neutrinos. However, oscillations to an active-sterile admixture remains viable and are worthy of investigation.

For a pure active oscillation solution, the NC rate measurement at SNO provides a direct determination of the 8B flux produced in the Sun However, the NC rate derived from SNO’s day and night spectra is dependent on the shape of the CC energy spectrum, and hence on the oscillation parameters . As a result, the CC and NC fluxes are strongly statistically correlated. This frees us from relying on the Standard Solar Model (SSM) prediction of this flux which has a large uncertainty. That is particularly significant because both SK and SNO are mainly sensitive to 8B neutrinos. These experiments are also sensitive to $`hep`$ neutrinos, which according to the SSM constitute a very tiny fraction compared to the 8B neutrinos. According to Ref. , the $`hep`$ flux is in fact the same as that of the SSM with an uncertainty of 20%. To avoid any dependence on the SSM 8B flux, previous authors have performed 8B flux free analyses so as to extract the oscillation parameters directly from the data . With the recent SNO results, this is no longer necessary; the NC rate is itself a 8B flux measurement and thus a probe of the oscillation dynamics. We take this approach. Also, we fix the unoscillated $`hep`$ flux at the SSM value.

Global analyses of solar data are by now quite standard other than the $`\chi ^2`$ function employed for the statistical treatment . We briefly describe the salient features of our analysis. We work in the framework of oscillations between two active neutrino flavors and focus on the Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein (MSW) solutions since the vacuum solution is tenuous at best; for completeness we also analyze the data in the limit of a pure vacuum solution. To evaluate the survival probability of solar neutrinos, we consider neutrino production points that are nonradial and consider the possibility of double resonances. The production point region of the different neutrino fluxes is as given by the SSM. We use semi-analytic expressions of the survival probability that have been derived for the almost exponential matter density of the Sun , but numerically integrate the evolution equations for the passage of neutrinos through the earth. For the earth-matter density, we make use of the Preliminary Reference Earth Model . The time spent by a detector at a particular zenith angle is given by the exposure function , which determines the extent to which earth matter affects the survival probability.

For the unoscillated neutrino fluxes other than the 8B flux, we adopt the SSM predictions from the $`pp`$ chain and $`CNO`$ cycle. We treat the 8B flux normalization $`\beta `$ as a parameter that is constrained by the SNO NC measurement. The undistorted spectrum shape of the 8B neutrinos is given in Ref. . To determine the expected signal at each detector, the fluxes are convoluted with the survival probability at the detector, the neutrino cross-sections and the detector response functions (for SK and SNO). We use the neutrino-electron elastic scattering cross-sections of Ref. , and the CC and NC cross-sections of neutrinos on deuterium of Ref. . The response functions are given in Ref.  for SK and in Ref.  for SNO.

We analyze the event rate from the Homestake experiment , the combined rate from GALLEX and GNO , the latest SAGE event rate , the SK day and night spectra corresponding to 1496 days of running , and the SNO day and night spectra (which include the CC, ES and NC fluxes) . We do not use the SK rate since the SK day and night spectra already include the normalization information .

The statistical significance of an oscillation solution is determined by evaluating a suitably chosen $`\chi ^2`$ function. We define a $`\chi ^2`$ that depends sensitively on the SNO NC flux and and is completely independent of the SSM 8B prediction. It is

$`\chi ^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i,j=1,3}{}}(R_i^{th}(\beta )R_i^{exp})(\sigma _R^2)_{ij}^1(R_j^{th}(\beta )R_j^{exp})`$ (11)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{i,j=1,38}{}}(R_i^{th}(\beta )R_i^{exp})(\sigma _{SK}^2)_{ij}^1(R_j^{th}(\beta )R_j^{exp})`$
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{i,j=1,34}{}}(R_i^{th}(\beta )R_i^{exp})(\sigma _{SNO}^2)_{ij}^1(R_j^{th}(\beta )R_j^{exp}).`$
In Eq. (11), $`R_i^{th}`$ and $`R_i^{exp}`$ denote the theoretical and experimental value of the event rate or flux measurement (depending on whether $`i`$ is an experiment or a spectrum bin) normalized to the expectation for no oscillations. The first term in $`\chi ^2`$ is the contribution of the rate measurements to the analysis. The sum runs from 1 to 3 because the Homestake, GALLEX+GNO and SAGE rates are included. The $`3\times 3`$ matrix $`\sigma _R^2`$ contains the experimental (statistical and systematic) and theoretical uncertainties. This matrix involves strong correlations arising from solar model parameters . Note that $`\sigma _R^2`$ does not include a theoretical uncertainty for the 8B neutrino flux.

The second term in Eq. (11) is the contribution of the distortions of the SK day and night spectra and implicitly, that of the SK rate. $`\sigma _{SK}^2`$ is a $`38\times 38`$ matrix that contains the statistical and systematic uncertainties of the $`19+19`$ spectral bins. The systematic uncertainties include the energy correlated, energy uncorrelated and energy independent contributions.

The third term encapsulates the contributions of the SNO CC, ES and NC rates and distortions of the SNO day and night spectra. The neutron and low energy backgrounds  are included in $`R_i^{th}`$. The 8B flux contribution to $`R_i^{th}`$ is multiplied by the normalization factor $`\beta `$ (relative to the central value of the SSM 8B value), which is constrained by the oscillation parameter dependent NC and CC flux components of the SNO day and night spectra.

In Fig. 2, we show the results of an analysis in which $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$, $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta `$ and $`\beta `$ have been varied. We only show those regions that are allowed at 3$`\sigma `$. Then the Small Mixing Angle (SMA) and VAC solutions are absent. We are left with only the LMA and LOW solutions. The contours represent the 95.4% C.L. (2$`\sigma `$), 99% and 99.73% C.L. (3$`\sigma `$) allowed regions which correspond to $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=6.17,9.21`$ and 11.83, respectively. Values of $`\theta `$ larger than $`\pi /4`$ are not allowed at the 5$`\sigma `$ C.L. The best-fit parameter values from the analysis are presented in Table II. It is significant that the LMA solution is favored over the LOW at the 99% C.L. The correlation between the CC and NC rates extractable from the SNO day and night spectra goes a long way in choosing the LMA over the LOW. Table II shows that the data choose large NC/CC ratios in all MSW regions. An NC/CC ratio $``$ 3 in the LOW region is at the upper end of the range possible in this region.

The best-fit, minimum and maximum values of the CC day-night asymmetry §§§The CC day-night asymmetry is defined by
$$A_{DN}=2\frac{ND}{N+D},$$
(12)  where $`D`$ and $`N`$ are the total CC fluxes detected during the days and nights, respectively. Discussions of earth regeneration effects can be found in Ref. ., $`A_{DN}(\beta )`$, at 2$`\sigma `$ for the LMA region are displayed in Table III.

We next illustrate how well the best-fits of the two contending solutions, LMA and LOW, do in relation to the average survival probabilities of the high energy (8B and $`hep`$), intermediate energy (7Be, $`pep`$, 15O and 13N) and low energy ($`pp`$) neutrinos extracted from the experimental rates.

For a description of how these probabilities are obtained see Refs. . In Fig. 3, we plot each model-independently extracted survival probability at the mean energy of the high, intermediate and low energy neutrinos relevant to the experiments. The vertical error bars result from the experimental uncertainties in the rate measurements and the theoretical uncertainties in the SSM flux predictions. The horizontal error bars span the energy ranges of high, intermediate and low energy neutrinos. The solid and dashed lines superimposed on the plot are flux-weighted survival probabilities at the SK detector corresponding to the best-fit LMA and LOW points of Table II, respectively. The monoenergetic 7Be and $`pep`$ fluxes are not included in the averaging. The wiggles in the survival probabilities at high energies is a result of earth-matter effects. Aside from the averaging, a similar plot was made in Ref.  with pre-SNO NC data.

As a glimpse of the precision in the LMA region that KamLAND data may provide us with in three years, we have simulated data (with an antineutrino energy threshold of 3.3 MeV) at the best-fit LMA point and overlayed the expected 2$`\sigma `$, 99% C.L. and 3$`\sigma `$ regions on the currently allowed LMA region in Fig. 4.

We conclude that the LMA solution with nonmaximal mixing and a large active neutrino component in the solar flux is favored at the 99% C.L.; the 2$`\sigma `$ allowed region spans $`2.7\times 10^51.8\times 10^4`$ eV2 in $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ and $`0.270.55`$ in $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta `$. KamLAND is an ideal experiment to precisely measure oscillation parameters in this range. No solution with $`\theta \pi /4`$ is allowed at 5$`\sigma `$. Since the mixing is found to be nonmaximal, a determination of the neutrino mass scale via neutrinoless double beta decay is an exciting possibility if neutrinos are Majorana . A large sterile neutrino component in the solar flux remains viable.

Acknowledgements. We thank M. Chen and J. Klein for several valuable discussions regarding SNO’s global analysis. We thank E. Kearns and M. Smy for providing us with the latest SK day and night spectra and for useful discussions. This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under Grants No. DE-FG02-95ER40896, No. DE-FG02-91ER40676 and No. DE-FG02-01ER41155 and by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.


text:
# Preprint SSU-HEP-02/04 Samara State University PSEUDOSCALAR POLE TERMS CONTRIBUTIONSTO HADRONIC LIGHT-BY-LIGHT CORRECTIONSTO THE MUONIUM HYPERFINE SPLITTING

## Abstract

The contribution of pseudoscalar pole diagrams to the hadronic light-by-light corrections of order $`\alpha ^3\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{F}`$ to the ground state hyperfine splitting in hydrogenic atom is calculated in the pseudoscalar pole terms approximation. The vector dominance model for the form factor of the transition of a pseudoscalar meson into two photons is used. With the account of new experimental data on the cross sections $`\sigma (\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\rho ,\omega \pi ^0(\eta )\gamma )`$ in the SND and CMD-2 experiments some other hadronic corrections to the muonium hyperfine splitting are calculated.

The study of strong interaction contributions to the energy spectra of hydrogen-like systems and lepton anomalous magnetic moments (AMM) is considered lately as an important problem which has large practical meaning for testing the Standard Model . One of such contributions is determined by hadronic vacuum polarization (HVP) . Presently there are at least two tasks where the HVP effects can be tested on the experiment. The measurement of muon anomalous magnetic moment in the new E821 experiment at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) was done with extremely high accuracy :

$$\mathrm{a}_\mu =116592023(151)\times 10^{11},$$
(1)
which allows to perform a check of the hadronic contribution in the Standard Model not only at one-loop level, but also with two-loop accuracy. In a Los Alamos experiment aimed at measuring the hyperfine splitting (HFS) of the muonium ground state, the accuracy of the measurement reached a few tens of Hertz :

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\nu ^{\mathrm{HFS}}(\mathrm{Mu})=4463302765(53)\mathrm{Hz}.$$
(2)
This requires taking into account both higher order contributions in $`\alpha `$ ($`\alpha `$ is the fine structure constant) and the contribution from the HVP of different order  to the muonium hyperfine splitting. Consistent calculation of the HVP contribution to the photon Green’s function can be carried out on high level of the accuracy, because hadronic spectral function $`\rho ^h`$ is connected with the cross section of $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}`$ annihilation into hadrons measured experimentally. A completely different situation occurs in the case of the hadronic light-by-light scattering contribution to the HFS in hydrogenic atoms or to the muon AMM  (see diagrams in fig.1,2). The contribution of such diagrams to the energy spectrum or lepton AMM is determined by the tensor of virtual $`\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}`$ scattering containing eight structure functions. Reliable experimental data about these structure functions are not available at present. In the low energy region $`\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}`$ interaction may be studied by means of effective field theory of interacting photons and hadrons . The calculation of such hadronic contributions to muon AMM in the pion pole terms approximation was carried out in Ref. . As a result the difference between the theoretical value for the muon AMM and experimental data was reduced to about 1 standard deviation . In this work we calculated the contribution of pseudoscalar pole terms to the muonium HFS . Corresponding diagrams, shown in fig.1,2 describe a part of $`\mathrm{O}(\alpha )`$ corrections to the leading hadronic contribution in the muonium HFS. The investigation of higher order effects on $`\alpha `$ to the muonium ground state hyperfine splitting allows to determine the muon-to-electron mass ratio from experimentally measured value (2) :

$$\frac{\mathrm{m}_\mu }{\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{e}}=206.7682798(43),\delta =210^8.$$
(3)
Such indirect determination of the muon electron mass ratio is almost six times more accurate than the best experimental value for $`\mathrm{m}_\mu /\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{e}`$ . Further improvement of the accuracy in (3) is connected with the calculation of a new theoretical contributions to $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _{\mathrm{HFS}}^{\mathrm{th}}(\mathrm{Mu})`$ of order 10 Hz, containing small parameters $`\alpha ^4\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{F}`$ 13 Hz, $`\alpha ^3\frac{\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{e}}{\mathrm{m}_\mu }\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{F}`$ 8 Hz, $`\alpha ^2(\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{e}/\mathrm{m}_\mu )^2\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{F}`$ 6 Hz which can be enhanced by the presence of logarithmic factors $`\mathrm{ln}\alpha ^1`$ = 4.92, $`\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{m}_\mu /\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{e})`$ = 5.33.

The effective vertex for the interaction of a $`\pi ^0`$ meson ( or other pseudoscalar mesons $`\eta `$, $`\eta ^{}`$) and virtual photons can be expressed by means of the transition form factor $`\mathrm{F}_{\pi ^0\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}}(\mathrm{k}_1^2,\mathrm{k}_2^2)`$:

$$\mathrm{V}^{\mu \nu }(\mathrm{k}_1,\mathrm{k}_2)=\mathrm{i}ϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }\mathrm{k}_{1\alpha }\mathrm{k}_{2\beta }\frac{\alpha }{\pi \mathrm{F}_\pi }\mathrm{F}_{\pi ^0\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}}(\mathrm{k}_1^2,\mathrm{k}_2^2),$$
(4)
where $`\mathrm{F}_\pi =0.0924`$ Gev is the pion decay constant, $`\mathrm{k}_1,\mathrm{k}_2`$ are the photon four momenta. Different model representations for the transition form factor $`\mathrm{F}_{\pi ^0\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}}(\mathrm{k}_1^2,\mathrm{k}_2^2)`$ exist. All of them can be used for the numerical estimation of the corrections to the muonium HFS. Firstly consider corrections which are determined by the diagrams in fig.1. In this case the photons interacting with one particle (electron or muon) possess the momenta $`\mathrm{k}_{1,2}`$ and $`(\mathrm{k}_{1,2})`$. The Feynman amplitudes containing the photon momenta $`\mathrm{k}_{1,2}`$ and $`(\mathrm{k}_{1,2}+\mathrm{q}_{1,2}\mathrm{p}_{1,2})`$ ($`\mathrm{p}_{1,2}`$ and $`\mathrm{q}_{1,2}`$ are four momenta of particles $`\mathrm{e}^{}`$, $`\mu ^+`$ in the initial and final states respectively) in one vertex (4) can be omitted since they determine the contribution to HFS of higher order in $`\alpha `$.

To construct the HFS part of the quasipotential in the $`\mathrm{e}^{}\mu ^+`$ system we used the operators projecting onto the states with the spin S=0 and S=1 respectively:

$$\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{\mathrm{S}=0}=\left[\mathrm{u}(\mathrm{p}_1)\overline{\mathrm{v}}(\mathrm{p}_2)\right]_{\mathrm{S}=0}=\frac{1+\gamma ^0}{2\sqrt{2}}\gamma _5,\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{\mathrm{S}=1}=\left[\mathrm{u}(\mathrm{p}_1)\overline{\mathrm{v}}(\mathrm{p}_2)\right]_{\mathrm{S}=1}=\frac{1+\gamma ^0}{2\sqrt{2}}\widehat{ϵ},$$
(5)
where $`ϵ^\mu `$ is the muonium polarization vector for the state $`{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{S}_{1}^{}`$, $`\widehat{ϵ}=ϵ^\mu \gamma _\mu `$. To obtain the contribution of the Feynman amplitude M to the energy spectrum we must calculate the common trace: $`\mathrm{Tr}\left[\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}^+\mathrm{M}\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}\right]`$. The diagrams with direct photons in fig.1 (a) give the following contribution to the muonium HFS:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}_1^{\mathrm{HFS}}=\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{F}\frac{16\alpha ^3\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{e}\mathrm{m}_\mu }{\mathrm{F}_\pi ^2\pi \mathrm{n}^3}\frac{\mathrm{d}^4\mathrm{k}_1}{\mathrm{i}(2\pi )^4}\frac{\mathrm{d}^4\mathrm{k}_2}{\mathrm{i}(2\pi )^4}\frac{\mathrm{f}_1(\mathrm{k}_1,\mathrm{k}_2)}{(\mathrm{k}_1^2)^2(\mathrm{k}_2^2)^2}\frac{\left[\mathrm{F}_{\pi ^0\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}}(\mathrm{k}_1^2,\mathrm{k}_2^2)\right]^2}{(\mathrm{k}_1^22\mathrm{k}_1^0\frac{\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{e}}{\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}})(\mathrm{k}_2^22\mathrm{k}_2^0\frac{\mathrm{m}_\mu }{\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}})[(\mathrm{k}_1+\mathrm{k}_2)^2\frac{\mathrm{m}_\pi ^2}{\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}^2}],}$$
(6)
where the Fermi energy $`\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{F}=8\mu ^3(\mathrm{Z}\alpha )^4/\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{e}\mathrm{m}_\mu `$, $`\mu =\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{e}\mathrm{m}_\mu /(\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{e}+\mathrm{m}_\mu )`$ is reduced mass, n is the principal quantum number,

$$\mathrm{f}_1(\mathrm{k}_1,\mathrm{k}_2)=2\mathrm{k}_1^{02}\mathrm{k}_2^2(\mathrm{k}_1\mathrm{k}_2)+\mathrm{k}_1^0\mathrm{k}_2^0[\mathrm{k}_1^2\mathrm{k}_2^2+(\mathrm{k}_1\mathrm{k}_2)^2]+(\mathrm{k}_1\mathrm{k}_2)[\mathrm{k}_1^2\mathrm{k}_2^2(\mathrm{k}_1\mathrm{k}_2)^2].$$
(7)
We make dimensionless the integration variables $`\mathrm{k}_1,\mathrm{k}_2`$ using the mass of the vector meson $`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}`$. Our function $`\mathrm{f}_1(\mathrm{k}_1,\mathrm{k}_2)`$ was derived after the calculation of the trace, summing over the Lorentz indices and averaging over the directions of the three momentum $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{k}}`$ for the states with total spin S=0 and S=1 respectively:

$$ϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }\mathrm{k}_{1\alpha }\mathrm{k}_{2\beta }ϵ^{\lambda \sigma \rho \omega }\mathrm{k}_{1\rho }\mathrm{k}_{2\omega }\mathrm{Tr}\left[\gamma ^\lambda (\widehat{\mathrm{p}}_1\widehat{\mathrm{k}}_1+\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{e})\gamma ^\mu \widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}\gamma ^\nu (\widehat{\mathrm{p}}_2+\widehat{\mathrm{k}}_2+\mathrm{m}_\mu )\gamma ^\sigma \widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}^+\right].$$
(8)
We employ the system FORM for this aim . The contribution of the Feynman diagram in fig.1 (b) to HFS with crossed photons has the form:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}_2^{\mathrm{HFS}}=\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{F}\frac{16\alpha ^3\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{e}\mathrm{m}_\mu }{\mathrm{F}_\pi ^2\pi \mathrm{n}^3}\frac{\mathrm{d}^4\mathrm{k}_1}{\mathrm{i}(2\pi )^4}\frac{\mathrm{d}^4\mathrm{k}_2}{\mathrm{i}(2\pi )^4}\frac{\mathrm{f}_1(\mathrm{k}_1,\mathrm{k}_2)}{(\mathrm{k}_1^2)^2(\mathrm{k}_2^2)^2}\frac{\left[\mathrm{F}_{\pi \gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}}(\mathrm{k}_1^2,\mathrm{k}_2^2)\right]^2}{(\mathrm{k}_1^2+2\mathrm{k}_1^0\frac{\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{e}}{\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}})(\mathrm{k}_2^22\mathrm{k}_2^0\frac{\mathrm{m}_\mu }{\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}})[(\mathrm{k}_1+\mathrm{k}_2)^2\frac{\mathrm{m}_\pi ^2}{\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}^2}],}$$
(9)
Corrections of lower order in the ratio of particle masses to the muonium HFS are determined by the Feynman diagrams in fig.2. They contain the factor of the same power in $`\alpha `$, because the photon propagator $`1/\stackrel{}{\mathrm{k}}^2`$ enters the amplitudes together with two factors $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{k}}`$ in the numerator. One degree of $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{k}}`$ is related to the anomalous part of the electron transition current $`\overline{\mathrm{u}}(\mathrm{q}_1)\frac{1}{2\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{e}}\sigma ^{\mu \nu }\mathrm{k}_\nu \mathrm{u}(\mathrm{p}_1)`$ and the other enters one of the vertices of the $`\pi ^0\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}`$ interaction. This does necessarily mean that the muon transition current expressed as

$$\mathrm{j}_{\mathrm{muon}}^\mu =\overline{\mathrm{u}}(\mathrm{q}_2)\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu \mathrm{u}(\mathrm{p}_2)=\overline{\mathrm{u}}(\mathrm{q}_2)\left[\frac{\mathrm{q}_2^\mu +\mathrm{p}_2^\mu }{2\mathrm{m}_\mu }\mathrm{F}_\mathrm{e}\frac{1}{2\mathrm{m}_\mu }\sigma ^{\mu \nu }\mathrm{k}_\nu \mathrm{F}_\mathrm{m}\right]\mathrm{u}(\mathrm{p}_2),$$
(10)
has the contributions from diagrams in fig.2 only to the magnetic form factor $`\mathrm{F}_\mathrm{m}`$, while $`\mathrm{F}_\mathrm{e}`$ = 0. The sum of contributions coming from the diagrams in fig.2 (a) and (b) can be written in the unified form if we use the symmetry properties of integral function under changing the variables $`\mathrm{k}_1\mathrm{k}_2`$:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}_3^{\mathrm{HFS}}=\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{F}\frac{4\alpha ^3\mathrm{m}_\mu \mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}}{\mathrm{F}_\pi ^2\pi \mathrm{n}^3}\frac{\mathrm{d}^4\mathrm{k}_1}{\mathrm{i}(2\pi )^4}\frac{\mathrm{d}^4\mathrm{k}_2}{\mathrm{i}(2\pi )^4}\frac{\mathrm{f}_3(\mathrm{k}_1,\mathrm{k}_2)}{(\mathrm{k}_1^2)(\mathrm{k}_2^2)(\mathrm{k}_1+\mathrm{k}_2)^2}\frac{\mathrm{F}_{\pi \gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}}(\mathrm{k}_1^2,0)\mathrm{F}_{\pi \gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}}[\mathrm{k}_2^2,(\mathrm{k}_1+\mathrm{k}_2)^2]}{\left(\mathrm{k}_1^2+2\mathrm{k}_1^0\frac{\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{e}}{\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}}\right)\left(\mathrm{k}_2^22\mathrm{k}_2^0\frac{\mathrm{m}_\mu }{\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}}\right)\left(\mathrm{k}_1^2\frac{\mathrm{m}_\pi ^2}{\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}^2}\right)},$$
(11)
where

$$\mathrm{f}_3(\mathrm{k}_1,\mathrm{k}_2)=\frac{16}{3}\mathrm{k}_1^{02}\frac{\mathrm{m}_\mu }{\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}}\mathrm{k}_2^2+\frac{16}{3}\mathrm{k}_1^0\mathrm{k}_2^0\frac{\mathrm{m}_\mu }{\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}}(\mathrm{k}_1\mathrm{k}_2)+\mathrm{k}_1^0\left[\frac{16}{3}(\mathrm{k}_1\mathrm{k}_2)^28\mathrm{k}_1^2\mathrm{k}_2^2\right]+\frac{8}{3}\mathrm{k}_2^0\mathrm{k}_1^2(\mathrm{k}_1\mathrm{k}_2)+\frac{16}{3}\frac{\mathrm{m}_\mu }{\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}}\left[\mathrm{k}_1^2\mathrm{k}_2^2(\mathrm{k}_1\mathrm{k}_2)^2\right].$$
(12)
The contribution of the diagram in fig.2 (c) which has different structure of the pion propagator and the transition form factors $`\mathrm{F}_{\pi ^0\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}}(\mathrm{k}_1^2,\mathrm{k}_2^2)`$ can be presented as follows:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}_4^{\mathrm{HFS}}=\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{F}\frac{4\alpha ^3\mathrm{m}_\mu \mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}}{\mathrm{F}_\pi ^2\pi \mathrm{n}^3}\frac{\mathrm{d}^4\mathrm{k}_1}{\mathrm{i}(2\pi )^4}\frac{\mathrm{d}^4\mathrm{k}_2}{\mathrm{i}(2\pi )^4}\frac{\mathrm{f}_4(\mathrm{k}_1,\mathrm{k}_2)}{(\mathrm{k}_1^2)(\mathrm{k}_2^2)(\mathrm{k}_1+\mathrm{k}_2)^2}\frac{\mathrm{F}_{\pi ^0\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}}[(\mathrm{k}_1+\mathrm{k}_2)^2,0]\mathrm{F}_{\pi ^0\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}}(\mathrm{k}_1^2,\mathrm{k}_2^2)}{\left(\mathrm{k}_1^2+2\mathrm{k}_1^0\frac{\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{e}}{\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}}\right)\left(\mathrm{k}_2^22\mathrm{k}_2^0\frac{\mathrm{m}_\mu }{\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}}\right)\left[(\mathrm{k}_1+\mathrm{k}_2)^2\frac{\mathrm{m}_\pi ^2}{\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}^2}\right]},$$
(13)
where

$$\mathrm{f}_4(\mathrm{k}_1,\mathrm{k}_2)=\frac{16}{3}\mathrm{k}_1^{02}\frac{\mathrm{m}_\mu }{\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}}\mathrm{k}_2^2+\frac{16}{3}\mathrm{k}_1^0\mathrm{k}_2^0\frac{\mathrm{m}_\mu }{\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}}(\mathrm{k}_1\mathrm{k}_2)+\frac{8}{3}\mathrm{k}_1^0\left[\mathrm{k}_1^2\mathrm{k}_2^2+\mathrm{k}_2^2(\mathrm{k}_1\mathrm{k}_2)\right]+\frac{8}{3}\frac{\mathrm{m}_\mu }{\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}}\left[\mathrm{k}_1^2\mathrm{k}_2^2(\mathrm{k}_1\mathrm{k}_2)^2\right].$$
(14)
Taking into account that the energy corrections (11) and (13) have the structure $`\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{F}\mathrm{a}_\mu `$ we conclude that hadronic contributions to muon AMM from expressions (11) and (13) coincide with the relating results of Ref. . To extract the anomalous part of muon electromagnetic current containing the form factor $`\mathrm{F}_2`$, the authors of Ref.  used the projection operator of special type. The form factor $`\mathrm{F}_{\pi \gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}}(\mathrm{k}_1^2,\mathrm{k}_2^2)`$ describing the conversion of two virtual photons into $`\pi ^0`$ meson should be calculated on the basis of strong interaction theory. The asymptotic behaviour of this form factor for large photon virtualities $`\mathrm{k}_{1,2}^2`$ was studied using the methods of perturbative and nonperturbative quantum chromodynamics . But the calculation of the corrections to the muonium HFS requires the proper description of the form factor $`\mathrm{F}_{\pi ^0\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}}(\mathrm{k}_1^2,\mathrm{k}_2^2)`$ at small and intermediate photon virtualities $`\mathrm{k}_1^2,\mathrm{k}_2^2`$ around 1 $`\mathrm{Gev}^2`$, which are dominant in the integrals entering $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{i}^{\mathrm{HFS}}`$. To evaluate the obtained contributions to the muonium HFS it is convenient to use the representation of the form factor $`\mathrm{F}_{\pi ^0\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}}(\mathrm{k}_1^2,\mathrm{k}_2^2)`$ based on the vector dominance model (VDM):

$$\mathrm{F}_{\pi \gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}}(\mathrm{k}_1^2,\mathrm{k}_2^2)=\frac{1}{\left(1\frac{\mathrm{k}_1^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mathrm{V}^2}\right)}\frac{1}{\left(1\frac{\mathrm{k}_2^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mathrm{V}^2}\right)},$$
(15)
where in the case of the $`\pi ^0`$ contribution $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mathrm{V}`$ = $`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}`$ = $`\mathrm{M}_\rho `$=0.7693 Gev is the mass of $`\rho `$ meson. This double VDM ansatz which was used as a theoretical input in the CLEO data analysis , behaves as $`1/(\mathrm{k}_1^2\mathrm{k}_2^2)`$ for asympotically large $`\mathrm{k}_1^2`$, $`\mathrm{k}_2^2`$, contradicting predictions of pQCD. Nevertheless for reasonably small momenta $`\mathrm{k}_1^2`$, $`\mathrm{k}_2^2`$ this model agrees with the experimental data , so we used it to obtain the numerical evaluation of relevant hadronic contributions. We performed numerical integration in the expressions $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{i}^{\mathrm{HFS}}`$ using (15). As a result we obtained the summary contribution to the muonium HFS $`(\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}_1^{\mathrm{HFS}}`$ \+ $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}_2^{\mathrm{HFS}})(\pi ^0)`$ coming from the diagrams in fig.1 which is equal 0.001 Hz. Respective result for the sum of the diagrams in fig.2 $`(\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}_3^{\mathrm{HFS}}`$ \+ $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}_4^{\mathrm{HFS}})(\pi ^0)`$ = 2.515 Hz. The employment of the VDM for the form factor $`\mathrm{F}_{\pi ^0\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}}(\mathrm{k}_1^2,\mathrm{k}_2^2)`$ makes possible analytical calculation of the integrals (11), (13), which was done in Ref.  by means of the expansion of integral functions in two parameters $`\delta `$ = $`(\mathrm{m}_\pi ^2\mathrm{m}_\mu ^2)/\mathrm{m}_\mu ^2`$ and $`\mathrm{m}_\mu ^2/\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}^2`$. The particle interaction amplitudes shown in fig.1 have additional small factor $`\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{e}/\mathrm{M}_\rho `$ in the comparison with the amplitudes in fig.2. So, corresponding numerical values are very different. We note also that the numerical value of the contribution from the diagrams in fig.2 to the muonium HFS $`\mathrm{a}_\mathrm{e}\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{F}`$ which is determined by the electron anomalous magnetic moment is extremely small: $`10^4`$ Hz.

The contributions of other pseudoscalar mesons $`\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$ were estimated in a similar way. To describe couplings of $`\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$ with virtual photons we used the form factor representation (4) where the pseudoscalar decay constants $`\mathrm{F}_\eta `$ and $`\mathrm{F}_\eta ^{}`$ are related to the two photon partial width of the resonance :

$$\mathrm{F}_{\eta ,\eta ^{}}^2=\frac{\alpha ^2}{64\pi ^3}\frac{\mathrm{M}_{\eta ,\eta ^{}}^3}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta ,\eta ^{}\gamma \gamma )}.$$
(16)
The CLEO data lead to the following values of $`\mathrm{F}_\mathrm{P}`$ : $`\mathrm{F}_\eta =0.0975`$ Gev, $`\mathrm{F}_\eta ^{}=0.0744`$ Gev. Their fit for transition form factors with a function defined by eq.(15) gives the following results for the parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mathrm{V}`$: $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\eta =0.774`$ Gev, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\eta ^{}=0.859`$ Gev. The results of numerical integrations for these two pseudoscalar mesons and total contributions to the muonium HFS are presented in the table. Note that from the theoretical viewpoint $`\mathrm{F}_\eta `$, $`\mathrm{F}_\eta ^{}`$ entering in Eq. (16) should be considered as effective decay constants due to the $`\eta \eta ^{}`$ mixing . We considered here the pseudoscalar pole terms contributions of order $`\alpha ^3\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{F}`$ to the muonium HFS presented in Fig. 1, 2. Numerical values of corresponding contributions are very different. The contributions of diagrams in Fig. 2 can be taken through the muon anomalous magnetic moment since the value of the muonium HFS is proportional to the product of the electron and muon total magnetic moments. So the new contributions to the muonium HFS come from the diagrams in Fig. 1 and are given in the first column of the table.

The contributions of the annihilation processes $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\rho ,\omega \pi ^0\gamma ,\eta \gamma `$ to the HVP corrections to the muonium HFS have the same order of the magnitude at energies $`\sqrt{\mathrm{s}}1`$ Gev. Recently new measurements of the cross sections of these reactions were carried out at SND and CMD-2 (Novosibirsk). The obtained experimental data for the cross sections $`\sigma (\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\pi ^0\gamma )`$ and $`\sigma (\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\eta \gamma )`$ and their theoretical approximations are shown in fig.3,4. Reactions of this type were taken into account effectively in our previous calculations  of the HVP corrections to the muonium HFS by using the Breit-Wigner parameterization for the resonance $`\omega `$. There are three important decay channels of the resonance $`\omega `$, which contribute to the total decay rate with the per cent accuracy: $`\omega \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ ($`88.8\%`$), $`\omega \pi ^0\gamma `$ ($`8.5\%`$), $`\omega \pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ ($`2.21\%`$) . The appearance of new experimental data for the $`\sigma (\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\omega \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0)`$, $`\sigma (\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\rho ,\omega \pi ^0(\eta )\gamma )`$  allows to separate hadronic contributions of the processes to the muonium HFS and to perform the calculation with higher accuracy. Theoretical cross sections for these processes in the region of $`\rho ,\omega `$ mesons were presented in the form :

$$\sigma _{\pi ^0\gamma }(\mathrm{s})=\frac{\mathrm{F}_{\pi ^0\gamma }(\mathrm{s})}{\mathrm{s}^{3/2}}|\mathrm{A}_{\rho ^0\pi ^0\gamma }(\mathrm{s})+\mathrm{A}_{\omega \pi ^0\gamma }(\mathrm{s})+\mathrm{A}_{\varphi \pi ^0\gamma }(\mathrm{s})|^2,$$
(17)
$$\sigma _{\eta \gamma }(\mathrm{s})=\frac{\mathrm{F}_{\eta \gamma }(\mathrm{s})}{\mathrm{s}^{3/2}}|\sqrt{4\pi \alpha ^2}\mathrm{C}_\eta +\underset{\mathrm{V}=\rho ,\omega ,\varphi ,\rho ^{}}{}\mathrm{A}_{\mathrm{V}\eta \gamma }|^2,$$
(18)
$$\sigma _{3\pi }(\mathrm{s})=\frac{\mathrm{F}_{3\pi }(\mathrm{s})}{\mathrm{s}^{3/2}}|\mathrm{A}_\omega +\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\alpha }\mathrm{A}_\varphi +\mathrm{A}_{\mathrm{bg}}|^2,$$
(19)
$$\mathrm{A}_{\mathrm{V}\pi ^0(\eta )\gamma }(\mathrm{s})=\frac{\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{V}\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{V}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\varphi _\mathrm{V}}}{\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{V}^2\mathrm{s}\mathrm{i}\sqrt{\mathrm{s}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{V}(\mathrm{s})}\sqrt{\sigma _{\mathrm{V}\pi ^0(\eta )\gamma }\frac{\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{V}^3}{\mathrm{F}(\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{V}^2)}},$$
(20)
where $`\mathrm{F}_{\pi ^0\gamma ,\eta \gamma }`$ are a phase space factors of the final states, $`\sigma _{\mathrm{V}\pi ^0(\eta )\gamma }`$ is the cross section of the process $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\mathrm{V}\pi ^0(\eta )\gamma `$ at $`\sqrt{\mathrm{s}}=\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{V}`$, $`\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{V}`$ is the resonance mass, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{V}(\mathrm{s})`$ is its decay width at the squared c.m. energy s, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{V}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{V}(\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{V}^2)`$. Three pion decay amplitudes $`\mathrm{A}_\omega `$, $`\mathrm{A}_\varphi `$ have the parameterization similar to (20) . $`\mathrm{F}_{3\pi }(\mathrm{s})`$ is a smooth function which describes the dynamics of $`\mathrm{V}\rho \pi \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ decay . The form of the functions entering the expressions (17)-(20) and the values of numerous parameters of the cross sections (17) - (19) were taken also from Ref. . The theoretical fit (19) of the experimental data is shown in fig. 5. To obtain the contributions to the muonium HFS we performed numerical integration of the cross sections (17) - (19) as in the previous work  in the energy region $`0.6\sqrt{\mathrm{s}}0.81`$. As a result we have found the following values of the corrections: $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}_{\mathrm{HVP}}^{\mathrm{HFS}}(\rho ,\omega \pi ^0\gamma )`$ = $`1.33\pm 0.03`$ Hz, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}_{\mathrm{HVP}}^{\mathrm{HFS}}(\rho ,\omega \eta \gamma )=0.042\pm 0.003`$ Hz, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}_{\mathrm{HVP}}^{\mathrm{HFS}}(\omega 3\pi )`$ = $`10.82\pm 0.33`$ Hz. So we obtain that our previous result for the $`\omega `$ contribution from  12.45 Hz must be changed on 12.19 Hz.

In conclusion we can point out that among other hadronic contributions of order $`\alpha ^3\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{F}`$ there are one-loop corrections which contain in parallel with hadronic loop also the electronic or muonic vacuum polarization (EVP and MVP respectively). The expressions for these contributions can be obtained using the skeleton integrals for two photon exchange diagrams  and standard modification of the photon propagator due to vacuum polarization and hadronic vacuum polarization. Without going into further details we present for these corrections the numerical values: $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}_{\mathrm{EVP},\mathrm{HVP}}^{\mathrm{HFS}}`$ = 3.7 Hz, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}_{\mathrm{MVP},\mathrm{HVP}}^{\mathrm{HFS}}`$ = 1.1 Hz.

We have calculated all hadronic light-by-light corrections of order $`\alpha ^3\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{F}`$ in the pseudoscalar pole terms approximation and main one-loop contributions containing electron (muon) and hadronic vacuum polarization of the same order in $`\alpha `$ to the muonium HFS. Combining all results presented here we find that the theoretical value  of the hadronic contribution to the muonium ground state HFS should be increased by 8.3 Hz.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are grateful to A.Czarnecki, S.I. Eidelman, M.I. Eides, Th. Feldmann, S.G. Karshenboim for useful communications and discussions. The work was performed under the financial support of the Program ”Universities of Russia” (grant UR.01.02.016) and the Ministry of Education (grant E00-3.3-45).