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# 𝐵_{𝑠,𝑑}→ℓ⁺ℓ⁻ and 𝐾_𝐿→ℓ⁺ℓ⁻ in SUSY models with non-minimal sources of flavour mixing

## 1 Introduction

The rare dilepton decays $`B_{s,d}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ and $`K_L\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ are ideal candidates to deeply investigate the dynamics of quark-flavour mixing. On the one side, they are highly sensitive to physics beyond the Standard Model (SM), like all processes mediated by flavour-changing neutral-current (FCNC) amplitudes. On the other side, the helicity suppression of vector contributions gives to these modes a unique sensitivity to scalar currents, which are typically negligible in other rare decays.

In this paper we analyse the rare dilepton decays in supersymmetric (SUSY) models with flavour non-universal soft-breaking terms. As is well known, this class of models is strongly constrained by currently available data on $`\mathrm{\Delta }F=2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }F=1`$ amplitudes (see e.g. Ref. ). However, a large fraction of the parameter space still remains to be explored. The only conclusion that can be drawn at present is that the possible new sources of flavour mixing, if any, must have a rather non-trivial structure. For instance, as emphasized recently in Ref. , the possibility of a large $`\stackrel{~}{b}_R`$$`\stackrel{~}{s}_R`$ mixing, motivated by SO(10) unification and neutrino data, is still open.

Supersymmetric contributions to rare FCNC decays have been widely discussed in the literature. However, most of the analyses are focused on scenarios with $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =O(1)`$. As we shall show, if $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =O(1)`$ there is little to learn from the dilepton modes, which cannot be extracted elsewhere. On the other hand, things change substantially at large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, because of the scalar FCNCs induced by the effective coupling of $`H_U^{}`$ to down-type quarks (the so-called non-holomorphic terms) .

As discussed in Refs. , at large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ the rates of $`B_{s,d}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ decays could be substantially enhanced with respect to the SM even without new sources of flavour mixing. As pointed out in , the same conclusion does not hold for $`K_L\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$. In this paper we analyse how the situation is modified by non-minimal flavour structures. Interestingly enough, in this case also $`K_L\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ play an important role, setting stringent bounds on off-diagonal squark mass terms.

The issue of SUSY contributions to $`B_{s,d}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ decays in the presence of non-universal squark mass terms has already been addressed in Refs. . Here we extend these works by discussing all possible $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$-enhanced terms, both those arising at higher orders and those not related to scalar FCNCs. We also clarify the issue of the diagonalization of the quark mass matrix in the presence of non-universal non-holomorphic terms. Last but not least, in our analysis we take into account the constraints from scalar-current contributions to $`K_L\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ and $`B`$$`\overline{B}`$ mixing, which have not been discussed before.

## 2 Generalities

The part of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }F=1`$ effective Hamiltonian relevant to $`P[\overline{d}^id^j]l^+l^{}`$ decays is

$`^{\mathrm{eff}}={\displaystyle \frac{G_F^2M_W^2}{\pi ^2}}[C_A𝒪_A+C_A^{}𝒪_A^{}+C_S𝒪_S+C_P𝒪_P+C_S^{}𝒪_S^{}+C_P^{}𝒪_P^{}]+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,`$ (1)
where

$`𝒪_A=\overline{d}_L^i\gamma ^\mu d_L^j\overline{\mathrm{}}\gamma _\mu \gamma _5\mathrm{},𝒪_A^{}=\overline{d}_R^i\gamma ^\mu d_R^j\overline{\mathrm{}}\gamma _\mu \gamma _5\mathrm{},`$
$`𝒪_S=\overline{d}_R^id_L^j\overline{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{},𝒪_S^{}=\overline{d}_L^id_R^j\overline{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{},`$
$`𝒪_P=\overline{d}_R^id_L^j\overline{\mathrm{}}\gamma _5\mathrm{},𝒪_P^{}=\overline{d}_L^id_R^j\overline{\mathrm{}}\gamma _5\mathrm{}.`$ (2)
According to this normalization of the effective operators, writing hadronic matrix elements of axial and pseudoscalar currents as

$$0|\overline{q}^i\gamma _\mu \gamma _5q^j|P(p)=ip_\mu f_P,0|\overline{q}^i\gamma _5q^j|P(p)=if_P\frac{M_P^2}{(m_i+m_j)},$$
(3)
the most general expression of the short-distance (SD) contribution to $`P[\overline{d}^id^j]l^+l^{}`$ branching ratios reads

$`_{\mathrm{SD}}(P\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{})={\displaystyle \frac{G_F^4M_W^4}{8\pi ^5}}f_P^2M_P\tau _Pm_{\mathrm{}}^2(1{\displaystyle \frac{4m_{\mathrm{}}^2}{M_P^2}})^{1/2}\times `$
$`\left[\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{4m_{\mathrm{}}^2}{M_P^2}}\right)\left|{\displaystyle \frac{M_P^2(C_SC_S^{})}{2m_{\mathrm{}}(m_i+m_j)}}\right|^2+\left|{\displaystyle \frac{M_P^2(C_PC_P^{})}{2m_{\mathrm{}}(m_i+m_j)}}+C_AC_A^{}\right|^2\right],`$ (4)
where the Wilson coefficients are understood to be evaluated at a scale of $`O(M_P^2)`$. In $`B_{s,d}`$ modes this is the only relevant contribution to the branching ratios, whereas in $`K_L`$ decays also long-distance effects have to be taken into account .

Within the SM only $`𝒪_A`$ has a non-vanishing Wilson coefficient,

$$C_A^{\mathrm{SM}}(M_W^2)=V_{3i}^{}V_{3j}Y_0\left(\frac{m_t^2}{M_W^2}\right)V_{2i}^{}V_{2j}Y_0\left(\frac{m_c^2}{M_W^2}\right),$$
(5)
where the charm contribution, which receives sizeable corrections in the running down to the meson scale, plays a non-negligible role only in the $`K_L`$ case . In the SUSY scenarios we are considering in this paper, all the $`C_i`$ could have, in principle, a relevant impact on the decay amplitudes.

We stress that, since the ratios $`(C_{S,P}C_{S,P}^{})/m_{\mathrm{}}`$ are independent of $`m_{\mathrm{}}`$, to a first approximation the relative weight of the various contributions is independent of $`m_{\mathrm{}}`$, whereas the overall branching ratios scale like $`m_{\mathrm{}}^2`$. This implies that i) $`e^+e^{}`$ modes are never interesting; ii) the difficult detection of $`(B_{s,d}\tau ^+\tau ^{})`$ with respect to $`(B_{s,d}\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ is partially compensated by an enhancement factor $`(m_\tau /m_\mu )^2`$.

## 3 Axial operators

The contributions to the axial operators $`𝒪_A`$ and $`𝒪_A^{}`$ can be divided into two big categories: $`Z`$ penguins and box diagrams. Those in the former class receive contributions from charginos, neutralinos and gluinos, while gluino exchange does not contribute to the latter class.

As discussed by several authors , box diagrams always play a subdominant role: in the case of $`\stackrel{~}{q}_L^i`$$`\stackrel{~}{q}_R^j`$ mixing the $`Z`$ penguins are by far dominant, in the case of $`SU(2)_L`$-conserving mixing ($`\stackrel{~}{q}_L^i`$$`\stackrel{~}{q}_L^j`$ or $`\stackrel{~}{q}_R^i`$$`\stackrel{~}{q}_R^j`$) the constraints from $`\mathrm{\Delta }F=2`$ processes forbid sizeable effects.

$`Z`$-penguin diagrams correspond to dimension-six effective operators of the type $`\overline{q}_{L(R)}^i\gamma ^\mu q_{L(R)}^jH^{}D_\mu H`$, where $`H`$ denotes the Higgs field. For this reason, to be non-vanishing, these diagrams require a double chirality flip, which can arise either by the $`\stackrel{~}{q}_L^i`$$`\stackrel{~}{q}_R^j`$ mixing or by the gaugino–Higgsino mixing (for charginos and neutralinos only). Also in this case, $`\mathrm{\Delta }F=2`$ constraints forbid sizeable effects in the case of $`SU(2)_L`$-conserving squark mixing. As a consequence, possible large effects (with respect to the SM) are controlled only by the $`\stackrel{~}{q}_L^i`$$`\stackrel{~}{q}_R^j`$ mixing terms, both in the up- and in the down-type sector.

### 3.1 Charginos

Involving up-type squarks, chargino contributions to $`Z`$ penguins are mildly sensitive to the value of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. These contributions, which we report here for completeness, have been widely discussed in the literature in the context of $`B(K)X_s(X_d)\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ processes . Before any mass expansion, we can write

$$[C_A]_\chi ^{Z^0}=\frac{1}{8g^2}L_{nl}^j\overline{L}_{mk}^iF_{nmlk}$$
(6)
where

$`L_{nl}^j`$ $`=`$ $`g\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{lj_L}^U\widehat{V}_{1n}^{}+y_q^uV_{qj}\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{lq_R}^U\widehat{V}_{2n}^{},`$
$`\overline{L}_{mk}^i`$ $`=`$ $`g(\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^U)_{i_Lk}^{}\widehat{V}_{m1}+y_q^uV_{qi}^{}(\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^U)_{q_Rk}^{}\widehat{V}_{m2},`$
$`F_{nmlk}`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{V}_{n1}\widehat{V}_{1m}^{}\delta _{lk}k(x_{mk},x_{nk})2\widehat{U}_{m1}\widehat{U}_{1n}^{}\delta _{lk}\sqrt{x_{mk}x_{nk}}f(x_{mk},x_{nk})`$ (7)
$`\delta _{mn}\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{kq_L}^U(\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^U)_{q_Ll}^{}k(x_{mk},x_{lk});`$
$`g`$ is the $`SU(2)_L`$ gauge coupling, $`V`$ denotes the CKM matrix, $`y_q^u=\sqrt{2}m_{u_q}/(v\mathrm{sin}\beta )=gm_{u_q}/(\sqrt{2}M_W\mathrm{sin}\beta )`$ and the loop functions $`k(x,y)`$ and $`f(x,y)`$ can be found in the appendix.111 As usual $`x_{\alpha \beta }=M_\alpha ^2/M_\beta ^2`$, with the indices ($`n`$, $`m`$) and ($`l`$, $`k`$) denoting chargino and squark-mass eigenstates, respectively. Here $`\widehat{V}`$ and $`\widehat{U}`$ are the unitary matrices which diagonalize the chargino mass matrix \[$`\widehat{U}^{}M_\chi \widehat{V}^{}=\text{diag}(M_{\chi _1},M_{\chi _2})`$\] and $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^U`$ is the one which diagonalizes the up-squark mass matrix, written in the basis where the $`d_L^i\stackrel{~}{u}_L^j\chi _n`$ coupling is family diagonal and the $`d_L^i\stackrel{~}{u}_R^j\chi _n`$ one is ruled by the CKM matrix.

The contribution of chargino $`Z`$-penguin diagrams to $`C_A^{}`$ necessarily involves two down-type Yukawa couplings ($`y_i^dy_j^d`$), which cannot be both of the third family. As a result, even at large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, this contribution is negligible with respect to the one in Eq. (6).

A detailed discussion on the relative weight of the various terms appearing in Eq. (6), up to the second order in the mass expansion, can be found in . Due to the off-diagonal CKM structure, the zeroth order term is not vanishing. However, this is not very interesting since it reaches at most $`𝒪(10\%)`$ of the SM contribution: the potentially largest effects are induced by terms of first or second order in the expansion of the squark mass matrix around the diagonal . A substantial simplification arises if, in addition to the squark mass matrix, also the chargino mass matrix is perturbatively expanded around the diagonal. In this case we can write

$$\frac{[C_A]_\chi ^{Z^0}}{C_A^{\mathrm{SM}}}\frac{1}{8}\left[y_t\frac{(\delta _{RL}^U)_{3j}\delta ^^\chi }{V_{3j}}f_1[x_{\alpha \beta }]+y_t\frac{(\delta _{LR}^U)_{i3}\delta ^^\chi }{V_{3i}^{}}f_1[x_{\alpha \beta }]+\frac{(\delta _{LR}^U)_{i3}(\delta _{RL}^U)_{3j}}{V_{3i}^{}V_{3j}}f_2[x_{\alpha \beta }]\right]+\mathrm{},$$
(8)
where

$$(\delta _{RL}^U)_{ij}=\frac{(M_{\stackrel{~}{U}}^2)_{i_Rj_L}}{M_{\stackrel{~}{q}}^2},\delta ^^\chi =\frac{M_W}{M_\chi },$$
(9)
and the dots denote terms not enhanced by inverse CKM matrix elements, which can be safely neglected. The explicit expressions of the adimensional functions $`f_{1,2}`$, which depend on the various sparticle mass ratios (and mildly on $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$), can be extracted from the full result in Eq. (6): for $`M_{\stackrel{~}{t}_R}/M_{\stackrel{~}{u}_L}1/2`$ and $`M_{\chi _n}/M_{\stackrel{~}{u}_L}1/3`$, one finds $`|f_1|\stackrel{<}{_{}}0.1`$ and $`|f_2|\stackrel{<}{_{}}0.4`$ (the upper figures are obtained for the minimal value of $`M_{\stackrel{~}{t}_R}`$).

As anticipated, large effects are in principle possible in the presence of large $`\stackrel{~}{u}_L^i`$$`\stackrel{~}{u}_R^j`$ mixing. However, both in the kaon and in the $`B`$ system this possibility has recently been severely restricted by new experimental data on the non-helicity-suppressed modes. In the kaon case a clean and stringent bound is set by $`(K^+\pi ^+\nu \overline{\nu })`$ . Similarly, in the $`B`$ system severe bounds are obtained by the recent data on both exclusive and inclusive $`B_dX_s\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ transitions . As a consequence of these new data, we are led to the model-independent conclusion that $`|C_A/C_A^{\mathrm{SM}}|<2`$ in the $`sd`$ channel  and is even closer to unity in the $`bs`$ case . The only channel without strong experimental bounds is the $`bd`$ one. However, once the vacuum-stability bounds of Ref.  are imposed on $`(\delta _{RL}^U)_{31}`$, also in this case one can at most obtain $`|C_A/C_A^{\mathrm{SM}}|=O(1)`$.

### 3.2 Gluinos

Contributions to $`Z`$ penguins which involve down-type squarks, with gluinos and neutralinos, are very sensitive to the value of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. In particular, at small $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ their effect is completely negligible because of the smallness of left–right down-type mass insertions. This conclusion is not necessarily true at large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, where, in principle, left–right down-type mass insertions can become as large as up-type ones.

The largest effects are expected from gluino exchange, whose contribution to $`C_A`$, before any mass expansion, can be written as

$$[C_A]_g^{Z^0}=\frac{1}{8g^2}A_{bl}^j\overline{A}_{ak}^iI_{balk},$$
(10)
where

$`A_{bl}^j`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{2}g_sT^b\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{lj_L}^D,`$
$`\overline{A}_{ak}^i`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{2}g_sT^a(\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^D)_{i_Lk}^{},`$
$`I_{balk}`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{ab}\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{kq_R}^D(\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^D)_{q_Rl}^{}k(x_{gl},x_{kl}),`$ (11)
$`g_s`$ and $`T^a`$ denote $`SU(3)_c`$ coupling and generators, and $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^D`$ is the matrix that diagonalizes the down-squark mass matrix (in the super-CKM basis). Contrary to the chargino exchange, in this case there is no zeroth order term in the mass expansion and $`C_A^{}`$ is not negligible a priori: $`[C_A^{}]_g^{Z^0}=[C_A]_g^{Z^0}(q_Lq_R)`$. However, the bounds on down-type mass insertions obtained from $`\mathrm{\Delta }F=2`$ processes are much stronger than in the up-type sector (because of the presence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }F=2`$ gluino-box amplitudes) . Once these constraints (and the vacuum-stability ones) are taken into account, it is easy to realize that in all types of $`d^id^j`$ transitions both $`[C_A^{}]_g^{Z^0}`$ and $`[C_A]_g^{Z^0}`$ can barely reach the magnitude of $`|C_A^{\mathrm{SM}}|`$. This conclusion is important since it ensures that the model-independent constraints on $`C_A`$ discussed before cannot be invalidated by an accidental cancellation between $`C_A^{}`$ and $`C_A`$.

The whole discussion on axial-vector operators can thus be summarized as follows: (i) at present, in all types of $`d^id^j`$ transitions, axial-vector contributions can reach the SM level at most; (ii) the most efficient way to constrain (or detect) non-standard axial-vector contributions is by means of non-helicity-suppressed decay modes.

## 4 Scalar and pseudoscalar operators

As discussed in Refs. , in the limit of large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ Higgs-mediated scalar FCNCs can strongly modify, or even overcome, the SM amplitudes of rare helicity-suppressed modes. The origin of this effect is related to the appearance, at the one-loop level, of an effective coupling between $`H_U`$ and down-type quarks . As discussed in  (see also ), a necessary condition to take into account all $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$-enhanced terms in FCNC amplitudes is the diagonalization of the down-type quark mass matrix in the presence of these effective couplings. Here we generalize this approach to the case where the effective $`\overline{d}_R^id_L^jH_U^{}`$ coupling contains also non-minimal sources of flavour mixing.222 We stress that the so-called resummation of the $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$-enhanced terms, in the limit where corrections of $`O(M_W^2/\stackrel{~}{M}^2)`$ are neglected, is nothing but the diagonalization of the effective Yukawa interaction, which includes the dimension-four effective operators appearing only at the quantum level . In particular, the computation of the coefficients of all relevant dimension-four effective operators to order $`(\alpha _i/\pi )^1`$, together with the diagonalization of the effective Yukawa interaction, leads to a resummation of all terms of order $`(\alpha _i\mathrm{tan}\beta /\pi )^n`$ in the limit $`M_W^2\stackrel{~}{M}^2`$.

Restricting the attention to the down-type neutral-Higgs sector, the effective down-type Yukawa interaction we need to consider is given by

$$_d^{\mathrm{eff}}=\overline{d}_R^i\left[y_i^d\delta _{ij}H_D^0+E_{ij}H_U^0\right]d_L^j+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,$$
(12)
where $`E_{ij}`$ parametrizes the coupling generated at one loop by both chargino and gluino diagrams. Here we do not make any specific assumption about the flavour structure of $`E_{ij}`$, but require that the off-diagonal entries can be treated as perturbations with respect to the (full) diagonal mass terms in (12).333 In particular, this means we ignore the fine-tuned scenario where $`E_{ii}\mathrm{tan}\beta y_i^d`$. Then proceeding as in Ref.  with a perturbative diagonalization of the mass terms, we find

$`_{\mathrm{FCNC}}^{\mathrm{eff}(i>j)}={\displaystyle \frac{y_i^d\mathrm{tan}\beta }{\overline{y}_i^d}}\left[E_{ij}+E_{ji}^{}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\overline{y}_j^d}{\overline{y}_i^d}}{\displaystyle \frac{y_j^d}{y_i^d}}\right)\right]\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{tan}\beta }}H_u^0H_d^0\right]\overline{d}_R^id_L^j+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,`$ (13)
where

$$\overline{y}_i^d=y_i^d+E_{ii}\mathrm{tan}\beta .$$
(14)
The analogue of (13) for $`i<j`$ is obtained with the exchange $`ij`$ in all indices of Yukawa couplings (both $`y^d`$ and $`\overline{y}^d`$), but not in the $`E_{ij}`$ terms.

In the absence of non-minimal sources of flavour mixing, one has

$$E_{ij}=E_{ij}^g+E_{ij}^\chi ,E_{ij}^g=ϵ_gy_i^d\delta _{ij},E_{ij}^\chi =ϵ_Yy_i^dy_t^2V_{3i}^0V_{3j}^0,$$
(15)
where $`V^0`$ denotes the bare CKM matrix (without the $`ϵ_Y\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ corrections induced by re-diagonalization) and

$`ϵ_g={\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha _s}{3\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu M_g}{M_{\stackrel{~}{d}_L}^2}}f(x_{gd_L},x_{d_Rd_L}),ϵ_Y={\displaystyle \frac{1}{16\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu A}{M_{\stackrel{~}{u}_L}^2}}f(x_{\mu u_L},x_{u_Ru_L}).`$ (16)
Using Eqs. (13)–(16), it is easy to recover the results of Refs. . We shall now proceed with the evaluation of $`E_{ij}^g`$ and $`E_{ij}^\chi `$ in the presence of non-minimal sources of flavour mixing.

### 4.1 Charginos

The $`E_{ij}`$ term induced by chargino–up-squark loops can be written as

$$E_{ij}^\chi =\frac{1}{16\pi ^2}L_{nl}^j\overline{R}_{nk}^iG_{nlk},$$
(17)
where

$`\overline{R}_{nk}^i`$ $`=`$ $`y_i^d(\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^U)_{i_Lk}^{}\widehat{U}_{2n}^{},`$ (18)
$`G_{nlk}`$ $`=`$ $`y_t\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{kq_L}^U(A_UV_0)_{q_Lt_R}^{}(\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^U)_{t_Rl}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{M_{\chi _n}}{M_{\stackrel{~}{u}_k}^2}}f(x_{lk},x_{nk}).`$ (19)
As usual, the trilinear soft-breaking term has been decomposed as $`A_U\times Y_U`$, and we have neglected all up-type Yukawa couplings but the top one. Since $`E_{ij}y_i^d`$, only the case $`i>j`$ is relevant, and it is also clear that the $`E_{ji}^{}`$ term in Eq. (13) can safely be neglected.

Integrating out the heavy neutral Higgs fields, in the large-$`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ limit, we then obtain

$`[C_S]_\chi ^{h^0,H^0,A^0}=[C_P]_\chi ^{h^0,H^0,A^0}={\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{2G_F^2M_W^2M_A^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{y_{\mathrm{}}E_{ij}^\chi \mathrm{tan}\beta }{[1+\mathrm{tan}\beta (ϵ_g+ϵ_Yy_t^2\delta _{i3})]}},`$ (20)
while the coefficients $`[C_{S,P}^{}]_\chi ^{h^0,H^0,A^0}`$, suppressed by the factor $`y_j^d/y_i^d`$, turns out to be negligible. Due to the off-diagonal entries of the CKM matrix, even with a diagonal up-squark mass matrix $`E_{ij}^\chi 0`$. This zeroth order term leads to :

$`[C_S]_\chi ^{h^0H^0A^0}=[C_P]_\chi ^{h^0H^0A^0}=`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{m_{d_i}m_{\mathrm{}}m_t^2}{4M_W^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\lambda }_{ij}^t\mathrm{tan}^3\beta }{[1+\mathrm{tan}\beta (ϵ_g+ϵ_Yy_t^2\delta _{i3})]}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu Af(x_{\mu u_L},x_{u_Ru_L})}{M_{\stackrel{~}{u}_L}^2M_A^2[1+ϵ_g\mathrm{tan}\beta ]}},`$ (21)
where, expressing $`V^0`$ in terms of the physical CKM matrix,

$$\overline{\lambda }_{i>j}^t=\{\begin{array}{cc}V_{33}^{}V_{3j}\hfill & (i=3),\hfill \\ V_{3i}^{}V_{3j}\left[\frac{1+\mathrm{tan}\beta (ϵ_g+ϵ_Yy_t^2)}{1+ϵ_g\mathrm{tan}\beta }\right]^2\hfill & (i3).\hfill \end{array}$$
(22)
Interestingly, this zeroth order term in the mass-insertion approximation (MIA), turns out to be the most interesting contribution induced by chargino exchange. Indeed, the only possibility to remove the CKM suppression factor $`V_{3j}`$ (the only one relevant in $`B`$ decays) is by means of a double mass insertion: one in the chargino line, the other in the $`l`$-squark line. This leads to a potential enhancement factor $`(\delta _{RL}^U)_{3j}\delta ^^\chi /V_{3j}`$, which is partially compensated by the suppression of the loop function with two mass insertions, i.e. a structure very similar to Eq. (8). Then, taking into account the bounds on $`(\delta _{RL}^U)_{3j}`$ discussed in Section 3.1, it turns out that this contribution can be at most of the same order as the zeroth-order term, or the minimal-flavour-violating (MFV) term.

The suppression factor $`V_{3i}^{}`$, which is relevant only to the kaon case, can be more easily removed: we simply need an off-diagonal trilinear term not proportional to $`V_{3i}^{}`$. This leads to a net enhancement factor $`(\delta _{LR}^U)_{i3}/V_{3i}^{}`$, which could reach one order of magnitude. However, as discussed in Ref. , the zeroth-order chargino contribution to the scalar $`K_L\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ amplitude amounts only to a few per cent of the SM one. Thus this potential enhancement is not particularly relevant.

### 4.2 Gluinos

The $`E_{ij}`$ term induced by gluino–down-squark loops can be written as

$$E_{ij}^g=\frac{1}{16\pi ^2}A_{bl}^j\overline{B}_{ak}^iJ_{balk},$$
(23)
where

$`\overline{B}_{ak}^i`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{A}_{ak}^i(i_Li_R),`$ (24)
$`J_{balk}`$ $`=`$ $`\mu \delta _{ab}\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{kq_R}^Dy_q^d(\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^D)_{q_Ll}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{M_g}{M_{\stackrel{~}{d}_l}^2}}f(x_{gd_l},x_{d_kd_l}).`$ (25)
As can be noted, the gluino contribution to $`E_{ij}`$ has a structure rather different from the chargino one. The latter is different from zero already at the lowest order in the MIA, but it is necessarily proportional to the Yukawa coupling $`y_i^d`$. On the other hand, $`E_{ij}^g`$ vanishes at the zeroth order in the MIA; however, with a suitable mass insertion it can be made proportional to any of the down-type Yukawa couplings. As a result, in the gluino case also the $`C_{S,P}^{}`$ coefficients can play an important role.

Assuming for simplicity $`i>j`$, the leading contributions to the scalar operators induced by $`E_{ij}^g`$ are given by

$`[C_S]_g^{h^0H^0A^0}=[C_P]_g^{h^0H^0A^0}={\displaystyle \frac{4g_s^2}{3g^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_{d_i}m_{\mathrm{}}\mu M_{\stackrel{~}{g}}}{M_{A^0}^2M_{\stackrel{~}{d}}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{tan}^3\beta }{[1+\mathrm{tan}\beta (ϵ_g+ϵ_Yy_t^2\delta _{i3})]^2}}\times `$
$`\times \left[(\delta _{LL}^D)_{ij}x_{dd_L}^2f(x_{gd_L},x_{d_Rd_L},1)+{\displaystyle \frac{y_b}{y_i^d}}(\delta _{RR}^D)_{i3}(\delta _{LL}^D)_{3j}x_{dd_L}^3f(x_{gd_L},x_{d_Rd_L},x_{d_Rd_L},1)\right],`$
(26)
$`[C_S^{}]_g^{h^0H^0A^0}=[C_P^{}]_g^{h^0H^0A^0}={\displaystyle \frac{4g_s^2}{3g^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_{d_i}m_{\mathrm{}}\mu M_{\stackrel{~}{g}}}{M_{A^0}^2M_{\stackrel{~}{d}}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{tan}^3\beta }{[1+\mathrm{tan}\beta (ϵ_g+ϵ_Yy_t^2\delta _{i3})]^2}}\times `$
$`\times \left[(\delta _{RR}^D)_{ij}x_{dd_R}^2f(x_{gd_R},x_{d_Ld_R},1)+{\displaystyle \frac{y_b}{y_i^d}}(\delta _{LL}^D)_{i3}(\delta _{RR}^D)_{3j}x_{dd_R}^3f(x_{gd_R},x_{d_Ld_R},x_{d_Ld_R},1)\right],`$
(27)
where the off-diagonal elements in the squark mass matrix have been parametrized in terms of flavour-changing insertions in the sfermion propagators, defined as in Eq. (9). The terms arising at the second order in the MIA are relevant, and play a very important role, only in the $`sd`$ case \[$`(\delta _{LL(RR)}^D)_{ii}\dot{=}0`$\]. Indeed, similarly to what happens in chargino-induced $`Z`$ penguins , only with a double flavour-mixing of the type $`(23)\times (31)`$ can the large Yukawa coupling of the third generation contribute to $`sd`$ amplitudes.

Before analysing the phenomenological implications of these formulae, we point out some differences with respect to previous analyses:

* Contrary to Refs. , the expressions (26) and (27) contain the leading (flavour-diagonal) $`ϵ\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ corrections to all orders. As pointed out in , this is a numerically important contribution for $`\mathrm{tan}\beta 50`$, where the largest effects are expected. In the limit where higher-order $`ϵ\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ corrections are neglected, we find that $`C_{S,P}^g`$ is proportional to $`\mathrm{tan}^3\beta `$, similarly to $`C_{S,P}^\chi `$. This behaviour, which is explicit in Ref. , is somehow hidden in Eqs. (4.4)–(4.5) of Ref.  (where the effective Yukawa interaction is not diagonalized). However, the $`\mathrm{tan}^3\beta `$ behaviour become manifest also in Ref.  after an expansion of the $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^D`$ matrices: in this limit we fully agree with the overall normalization of Ref. .444 This normalization differs from the one of Ref. , which contains an extra factor of 4. We thank J. Urban for a clarifying discussion about this point.
* Within the limiting factors associated to the MIA, our formulae contain as a special case the scenario C of Ref. . In our opinion, such a scenario should not be denoted as a case of minimal flavour violation. Indeed diagonal — but flavour-non-universal — squark mass matrices do provide a new source of breaking of the $`SU(3)^5`$ flavour group  and indeed they break the SM relation between Yukawa matrices and FCNC amplitudes. Since the purpose of this analysis is to identify the potentially largest effects generated by non-minimal sources of flavor mixing, and to identify the main differences with respect to MFV scenario (defined as in Ref ), we prefer to treat all non-minimal cases in the same way, using the MIA. For the same reason, we shall not consider subleading terms such as the neutralino amplitude, which become important only in presence of cancellations among the leading terms .

## 5 Phenomenological bounds

As discussed in the previous two sections, only scalar (and pseudoscalar) operators can induce large enhancements of $`B_{d,s}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ rates over the SM expectations. Among the contributions to these operators, the one induced by chargino exchange is likely to be dominated by the MFV term, widely discussed in the literature. On the other hand, the gluino contribution is extremely sensitive to possible new sources of flavour mixing. For this reason, in the following we shall concentrate only on gluino-mediated scalar amplitudes.

### 5.1 $`B_{d,s}\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$

In the limit where $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ is large ($`\mathrm{tan}\beta \stackrel{>}{_{}}30`$), $`M_A`$ is rather light ($`M_A\stackrel{<}{_{}}500`$ GeV) and the off-diagonal mixing terms $`(\delta _{LL(RR)}^D)_{3i}`$ are not vanishing, the gluino (scalar) amplitude could dominate both $`B_d\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ and $`B_s\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ rates. To get a rough idea of the possible effects, in the limit of degenerate sparticles we can write:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{^g(B_d\mu ^+\mu ^{})}{^{\mathrm{SM}}(B_d\mu ^+\mu ^{})}}`$ $``$ $`3\times 10^6\left({\displaystyle \frac{200}{M_A}}\right)^4\left|(\delta _{LL(RR)}^D)_{31}\right|^2{\displaystyle \frac{\left(\frac{\mathrm{tan}\beta }{50}\right)^6}{\left[\frac{2}{3}+\frac{1}{3}\left(\frac{\mathrm{tan}\beta }{50}\right)\right]^4}},`$ (28)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{^g(B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{})}{^{\mathrm{SM}}(B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{})}}`$ $``$ $`1.5\times 10^5\left({\displaystyle \frac{200}{M_A}}\right)^4\left|(\delta _{LL(RR)}^D)_{32}\right|^2{\displaystyle \frac{\left(\frac{\mathrm{tan}\beta }{50}\right)^6}{\left[\frac{2}{3}+\frac{1}{3}\left(\frac{\mathrm{tan}\beta }{50}\right)\right]^4}}.`$ (29)
These approximate numerical expressions hold at first order in the MIA, in the limit where we neglect any interference between supersymmetric and SM amplitudes and between supersymmetric contributions with different mass insertions. Moreover, we have neglected $`ϵ_Yy_t^2`$ with respect to $`ϵ_g`$ in the denominators of Eqs. (26) and (27), and we have set $`ϵ_g`$ to the value it assumes in the limit of degenerate supersymmetric scales, for $`\mu >0`$ ($`ϵ_g0.012`$).555 The sign of $`\mu `$ is chosen according to the indications from $`bs\gamma `$ and $`(g2)_\mu `$ . A more complete illustration of the full dependence of $`(B_d\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ from various supersymmetric parameters is provided by Fig. 1.

Using the present experimental bounds

$`(B_d\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ $`<`$ $`2.0\times 10^790\%\mathrm{C}.\mathrm{L}.\text{[24]},`$ (30)
$`(B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ $`<`$ $`2.0\times 10^690\%\mathrm{C}.\mathrm{L}.\text{[25]},`$ (31)
we can derive a series of constraints on the squark flavour-mixing terms appearing in Eqs. (26) and (27). These are reported in Table 1 and illustrated in Fig. 1 (we show explicitly only the $`13`$ case since the $`23`$ is completely analogous, except for the rescaling of the SM contribution). All the bounds have been obtained in the limit of complete degeneracy among the eigenvalues of down-type squark masses. Moreover, we stress once more that these bounds are valid only in the limit where the gluino scalar amplitude corresponding to a given flavour-mixing term dominates completely the decay rate. If $`(\delta _{LL}^D)_{3i}`$ and $`(\delta _{RR}^D)_{3i}`$ are of the same order of magnitude, interference effects can no longer be neglected and leads to $`O(1)`$ modifications of these bounds. For instance for $`(\delta _{LL}^D)_{3i}=(\delta _{RR}^D)_{3i}`$ the bounds become more stringent by about a factor $`\sqrt{2}`$.

As already pointed out in Ref. , for sufficiently large values of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ the bounds on $`|(\delta _{LL(RR)}^D)_{31}|`$ are more severe than those derived from the gluino-box contribution to $`B_d`$$`\overline{B}_d`$ mixing . However, we find that the effect is substantially reduced, with respect to what discussed in Ref. , by the higher-order $`ϵ\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ terms.

Already for $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =30`$, the upper bounds obtained on $`|(\delta _{RR(LL)}^D)_{32}|`$ are much more severe than those that could be derived, in the near future, from $`B_s`$$`\overline{B}_s`$ mixing or the CP-violating asymmetry in $`B_d\varphi K_s`$. As a result, if the scenario with a large $`\stackrel{~}{b}_R`$$`\stackrel{~}{s}_R`$ mixing discussed in Ref.  is accompanied by a large value of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, which is a natural possibility in SO(10) models, the most interesting observables to look at are $`(B_{s,d}\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$. The clear signature of this scenario would be $`(B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ well above the SM expectation and, at the same time, a ratio $`(B_d\mu ^+\mu ^{})/(B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ different from $`|V_{td}/V_{ts}|^2`$ (i.e. the value expected in the absence of new flavour structures ).

### 5.2 $`K_L\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$

Within the SM the short-distance contribution to the $`K_L\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ branching ratio is predicted to be $`^{\mathrm{SM}}(K_L\mu ^+\mu ^{})_{\mathrm{SD}}=(8.7\pm 3.7)\times 10^{10}`$ . This expectation cannot be directly confronted with experimental data because of the long-distance amplitude generated by the two-photon intermediate state. Indeed the precise experimental measurement of $`^{SM}(K_L\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$  turns out to be completely saturated by the absorptive two-photon contribution, signaling a cancellation between short-distance and dispersive long-distance amplitudes. Taking into account the estimates of the dispersive long-distance amplitude in Refs. , we shall assume in the following the conservative upper bound

$$(K_L\mu ^+\mu ^{})_{\mathrm{SD}}<3.0\times 10^9,$$
(32)
which should be regarded as a reference figure rather than as a strict bound.

As can be read from Eqs. (26) and (27), gluino contributions to the $`K_L\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ amplitude suffer, at the first order in the MIA, by a double strong suppression: the smallness of the strange Yukawa coupling and the indirect constraints on $`(\delta _{LL(RR)}^D)_{21}`$ . However, the SM amplitude of $`K_L\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ decay is also affected by a strong suppression due to the CKM hierarchy \[$`𝒜(K_L\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{})^{\mathrm{SM}}\lambda ^5`$\]. As a result, for large values of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ this supersymmetric amplitude could even become the dominant short-distance contribution. Adopting the same approximations as in Eqs. (28) and (29), we can write

$`{\displaystyle \frac{^{g(1)}(K_L\mu ^+\mu ^{})}{^{\mathrm{SM}}(K_L\mu ^+\mu ^{})_{\mathrm{SD}}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{200}{M_A}}\right)^4\left|{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{Re}(\delta _{LL(RR)}^D)_{21}}{3\times 10^3}}\right|^2{\displaystyle \frac{\left(\frac{\mathrm{tan}\beta }{50}\right)^6}{\left[\frac{2}{3}+\frac{1}{3}\left(\frac{\mathrm{tan}\beta }{50}\right)\right]^4}}.`$ (33)
If $`|\mathrm{Re}(\delta _{LL}^D)_{12}||\mathrm{Im}(\delta _{LL}^D)_{12}|`$, as happens in many reasonable scenarios, the bound on $`|\mathrm{Re}(\delta _{LL(RR)}^D)_{21}|`$ we can extract from this amplitude (see Table 1) becomes competitive, for $`\mathrm{tan}\beta 50`$, with those derived from the gluino-box contribution to $`K^0`$$`\overline{K}^0`$ mixing .

As already emphasized, in rare $`K`$ decays it is often necessary to go up to the second order in the MIA in order to take into account all possible large effects . This occurs also in this case where, according to Eqs. (26) and (27), at the second order in the MIA we can get rid of both suppression factors affecting the term with a single mass insertion. In the usual limit of degenerate supersymmetric scales, we can write

$`{\displaystyle \frac{^{g(2)}(K_L\mu ^+\mu ^{})}{^{\mathrm{SM}}(K_L\mu ^+\mu ^{})_{\mathrm{SD}}}}`$ $``$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{200}{M_A}}\right)^4\left|{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{Re}[(\delta _{RR(LL)}^D)_{23}(\delta _{LL(RR)}^D)_{31}]}{1\times 10^4}}\right|^2{\displaystyle \frac{\left(\frac{\mathrm{tan}\beta }{50}\right)^6}{\left[\frac{2}{3}+\frac{1}{3}\left(\frac{\mathrm{tan}\beta }{50}\right)\right]^4}}.`$
Notice that the value of the effective coupling $`|\mathrm{Re}[(\delta _{RR(LL)}^D)_{23}(\delta _{LL(RR)}^D)_{31}]|`$ needed to reach the SM level is one order of magnitude smaller than the corresponding one required by $`|\mathrm{Re}(\delta _{LL}^D)_{12}|`$. The precise bounds imposed by Eq. (32) on the effective coupling $`|\mathrm{Re}[(\delta _{RR(LL)}^D)_{23}(\delta _{LL(RR)}^D)_{31}]|`$, for different values of supersymmetric parameters, are shown in Fig. 2 and reported in Table 1. These bounds indicate that if $`(\delta _{LL}^D)_{ij}`$ and $`(\delta _{RR}^D)_{ij}`$ are of the same order, we cannot saturate at the same time the present limits on $`(B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ and $`(B_d\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$. On the other hand, this possibility remains open if there exists a strong hierarchy between the two types of couplings. As we shall see, this conclusion is strongly reinforced by the constraints from $`B`$$`\overline{B}`$ mixing.

### 5.3 $`B`$$`\overline{B}`$ mixing

So far we compared the bounds on the mass insertions relevant to $`\mathrm{\Delta }F=1`$ scalar amplitudes, at large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, with constraints imposed by $`\mathrm{\Delta }F=2`$ vector-type amplitudes (the gluino-box diagrams), which are independent from $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. However, as pointed out first in  (see also ), at large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ scalar amplitudes could also play a significant role in $`\mathrm{\Delta }F=2`$ transitions. Indeed contracting the complex $`H_d`$ field in Eq. (13) with an appropriate FCNC coupling of $`H_d^{}`$ \[hidden in the Hermitian conjugate part of Eq. (13)\] we obtain $`\mathrm{\Delta }F=2`$ effective operators of the type $`\overline{d}_R^id_L^j\overline{d}_L^id_R^j`$ whose coupling scales like $`\mathrm{tan}^4\beta `$.

If $`E_{ij}`$ is necessarily proportional to $`y_i^d`$, as happens in the chargino case, it is easy to realize that these $`\mathrm{\Delta }F=2`$ scalar operators are always suppressed by a small Yukawa coupling ($`y_{j3}^d`$) . A similar situation occurs in the gluino case, if we allow only one type of mass insertion to be different from zero, i.e. $`(\delta _{LL}^D)_{3j}`$ or $`(\delta _{RR}^D)_{3j}`$. In these cases the only non-trivial constraints are set by $`B_s`$$`\overline{B}_s`$ mixing, where this small Yukawa coupling is $`y_s`$. We have explicitly checked that these bounds are less stringent than those set by $`(B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$, i.e. they do not exclude the possibility that $`(B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ is just below its present experimental limit.666 A similar conclusion was recently reported also in Ref. .

On the other hand, as we learned from the $`P\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ analysis, if we allow both LL and RR insertions to be different from zero we can have both $`E_{3j}^g`$ and $`E_{j3}^g`$ proportional to $`y_b`$ and get rid of any small Yukawa coupling. In this case we obtain the following $`\mathrm{\Delta }F=2`$ effective Hamiltonian:

$`_{\mathrm{\Delta }B=2}^{\mathrm{eff}(\mathrm{scalar})}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{E_{3j}^gE_{j3}^g\mathrm{tan}^2\beta }{M_A^2[1+\mathrm{tan}\beta (ϵ_g+ϵ_Yy_t^2)]^2}}\overline{b}_Rd_L^j\overline{b}_Ld_R^j`$ (35)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{y_b^2\mathrm{tan}^2\beta (\delta _{LL}^D)_{3j}(\delta _{RR}^D)_{3j}}{[1+\mathrm{tan}\beta (ϵ_g+ϵ_Yy_t^2)]^2M_A^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha _s\mu M_{\stackrel{~}{g}}}{3\pi M_{\stackrel{~}{d}}^2}}\right)^2\overline{b}_Rd_L^j\overline{b}_Ld_R^j`$
$`\times \left[x_{dd_L}^2x_{dd_R}^2f(x_{gd_L},x_{d_Rd_L},1)f(x_{gd_R},x_{d_Ld_R},1)\right],`$
which have a large potential impact on both $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_{B_d}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_{B_s}`$. Employing the usual approximation of degenerate supersymmetric scales, we can write

$`\left|{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }M_{B_d}^g}{\mathrm{\Delta }M_{B_d}^{\mathrm{SM}}}}\right|`$ $``$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{200}{M_A}}\right)^2\left|{\displaystyle \frac{(\delta _{LL}^D)_{31}(\delta _{RR}^D)_{31}}{6\times 10^6}}\right|{\displaystyle \frac{\left(\frac{\mathrm{tan}\beta }{50}\right)^4}{\left[\frac{2}{3}+\frac{1}{3}\left(\frac{\mathrm{tan}\beta }{50}\right)\right]^4}},`$ (36)
$`\left|{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }M_{B_s}^g}{\mathrm{\Delta }M_{B_s}^{\mathrm{SM}}}}\right|`$ $``$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{200}{M_A}}\right)^2\left|{\displaystyle \frac{(\delta _{LL}^D)_{32}(\delta _{RR}^D)_{32}}{1\times 10^4}}\right|{\displaystyle \frac{\left(\frac{\mathrm{tan}\beta }{50}\right)^4}{\left[\frac{2}{3}+\frac{1}{3}\left(\frac{\mathrm{tan}\beta }{50}\right)\right]^4}},`$ (37)
The bounds obtained by the full analytical expressions, imposing the conditions $`|\mathrm{\Delta }M_{B_{d,s}}^g|<|\mathrm{\Delta }M_{B_{d,s}}^{\mathrm{SM}}|`$, are reported in Table 2. The comparison between Table 1 and Table 2 clearly shows that down-type squark mixing could have a sizeable impact on $`(B_{s,d}\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ modes only in the presence of a strong hierarchy between LL and RR insertions.

We finally mention that, in principle, one could extract bounds on the combination $`(\delta _{LL}^D)_{23}(\delta _{LL}^D)_{31}(\delta _{RR}^D)_{23}(\delta _{RR}^D)_{31}`$ from $`K`$$`\overline{K}`$ mixing. We have explicitly checked that the bounds imposed by $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_K`$ on $`\sqrt{|\mathrm{Re}[(\delta _{LL}^D)_{23}(\delta _{LL}^D)_{31}(\delta _{RR}^D)_{23}(\delta _{RR}^D)_{31}]|}`$ are slightly less stringent than those obtained from $`K_L\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ on $`|\mathrm{Re}[(\delta _{LL}^D)_{23}(\delta _{RR}^D)_{31}]|`$ and reported in Table 1. This happens because, contrary to $`B_{s,d}\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ modes, we can allow at most $`O(1)`$ effects in $`K_L\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$.

## 6 Conclusions

The rare dilepton decays $`B_{s,d}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ offer a unique opportunity to study the scalar FCNCs which naturally arise in supersymmetry at large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. In this paper we have complemented previous studies of these decays modes in supersymmetry  analysing their sensitivity to non-minimal sources of flavour mixing.

Similarly to the MFV scenario , we have shown that also in this case it is necessary to diagonalize the effective Yukawa interaction — including the $`\overline{d}_R^id_L^jH_U^{}`$ coupling generated by the new flavour structures — in order to identify the correct $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ behaviour of scalar FCNCs and to take into account all the leading $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$-enhanced terms. Using this approach, we have corrected/completed previous results on $`𝒜(B_{s,d}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{})`$ in the presence of non-minimal sources of flavour mixing .

An important difference with respect to the MFV scenario arises because the effective $`\overline{d}_R^id_L^jH_U^{}`$ operator generated by gluino–squark loops is not necessarily proportional to the Yukawa coupling of the right-handed external quark ($`y_i^d`$): allowing both left–left and right–right mass insertions to be different from zero, we can generate potentially large contributions suppressed only by the bottom Yukawa coupling (even for both $`i3`$ and $`j3`$). This leads to extract stringent bounds on the flavour off-diagonal down-type squark mixing, at large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, from $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_{B_{d,s}}`$ and $`K_L\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$. These bounds, which have been analysed for the first time as reported in this paper, are summarized in Tables 1 and 2.

As a result of the bounds from $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_{B_{d,s}}`$ and $`K_L\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$, we reached the conclusion that flavour off-diagonal squark mixing can induce order-of-magnitude enhancements of $`(B_{s,d}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{})`$ only in the presence of a strong hierarchy between left–left and right–right flavour-mixing terms. This scenario, which is apparently fine-tuned, could be generated in a natural way in GUT models, as pointed out for instance in Ref. . If this is the case, one should expect a ratio $`(B_d\mu ^+\mu ^{})/(B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ very different from $`|V_{td}/V_{ts}|^2`$, i.e. the value expected in the absence of new flavour structures.

## Acknowledgements

We thank A. Dedes and J. Urban for useful discussions.

## Appendix A Loop functions

The loop functions appearing in the chargino–squark and gluino–squark penguin amplitudes discussed in Sections 3 and 4, can be derived from the recursive formula

$$I(x,y,z_1,\mathrm{},z_{n2})=\frac{I(x,z_1,\mathrm{},z_{n2})I(y,z_1,\mathrm{},z_{n2})}{xy},$$
(38)
starting from the single variable functions

$`f(x)={\displaystyle \frac{x\mathrm{log}x}{x1}}\mathrm{and}k(x)=xf(x).`$ (39)
Some useful reference values are

$`f(1,1)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}},f(1,1,1)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}},f(1,1,1,1)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{12}}.`$ (40)


format: text

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# Exponential Stellar Disks in Low Surface Brightness Galaxies: A Critical Test of Viscous Evolution

## 1 Introduction

An exponential stellar light profile over 4-6 disk scale lengths is an almost universal observational feature of disk galaxies (e.g., Freeman, 1970; de Jong, 1996). Yet, the production of a stellar exponential disk over more than 3 scale-lengths during the early stages of galaxy formation can prove highly challenging (e.g., Dalcanton, Spergel & Summers, 1997; van den Bosch, 2001; Ferguson & Clarke, 2001, although see also Contardo, Steinmetz & Fritze-von Alvensleben 1998). Ever since their inception (Lin & Pringle, 1987a), viscous evolution models have endured as an attractive way of producing exponential stellar disks over $``$4 disk scale lengths, almost independent of the initial density distribution. In a differentially rotating gas disk, viscosity caused by non-circular gas motions and turbulence transports angular momentum outwards as mass flows inwards (Pringle, 1981; Lin & Pringle, 1987a). To prevent viscous evolution from reaching its logical endpoint (all the mass at the origin, all the angular momentum at infinity), the star formation (SF) timescale $`t_{}`$ should be within half an order of magnitude of the viscous timescale111This expression for $`t_\nu `$ only applies in the case of a rotation curve which is not close to solid body. $`t_\nu r^2/\nu `$ to ‘freeze in’ a nearly exponential stellar surface brightness profile over many disk scale-lengths (e.g., Lin & Pringle, 1987a; Clarke, 1989; Yoshii & Sommer-Larsen, 1989; Olivier et al., 1991; Hellsten & Sommer-Larsen, 1992; Firmani, Hernandez & Gallagher, 1996; Ferguson & Clarke, 2001; Slyz et al., 2002).

In 1D, the evolution of the gas density $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$ at a given radius $`r`$ is given by:

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }_g}{t}=\frac{1}{r}\frac{}{r}\left\{\frac{(/r)[\nu \mathrm{\Sigma }_gr^3d\mathrm{\Omega }/dr]}{d/dr(r^2\mathrm{\Omega })}\right\}\psi _{},$$
(1)
where $`t`$ is the time, $`\nu `$ is the viscosity, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the angular velocity, and $`\psi _{}`$ is the SF rate (Lin & Pringle, 1987a). A brief inspection of Eqn. 1 shows a well-known result: in a galaxy without shear (a solid-body rotation curve with $`d\mathrm{\Omega }/dr=0`$) there can be no viscous evolution.

Bearing this in mind, it is interesting to note that recently published high-resolution ($``$2″) H$`\alpha `$ rotation curves for low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies are slowly rising, and in a few cases are nearly solid-body, within the optical extent of the galaxy (e.g., de Blok et al., 2001; de Blok & Bosma, 2002; Matthews & Gallagher, 2002). Solid-body rotation curves have no shear, meaning that viscous evolution would not occur. Yet, many LSB galaxies have exponential surface brightness profiles over 4 or more disk scale lengths (e.g., McGaugh & Bothun, 1994; de Blok, van der Hulst & Bothun, 1995; Bell et al., 2000). This could argue against a significant role for viscous evolution in generating the exponential stellar disks of LSB galaxies, implying that the structure of (at least) LSB disks offers important insight into the initial conditions of galactic disk formation.

To understand if constraints on galaxy formation models can be gleaned from the structure of LSB galaxy disks, it is important to quantitatively explore this issue. The key questions are: i) how close to solid-body are the rotation curves of LSB galaxies? and ii) will the same kind of viscous evolution processes postulated to affect Milky Way-type galaxies be able to capitalize on any small departures from solid-body behavior, and be able to generate exponential stellar disks in LSB galaxies?

To address this problem, I set out in this paper to estimate the possible effect of viscous evolution in LSB galaxies with known, well-constrained surface brightness profiles and rotation curves. I make the central assumption that viscous processes in LSB galaxies and normal Milky Way-like galaxies have the same efficiency, and that any differences in viscous timescales are the result of different rotation curves and gas densities only. Comparing these viscous timescales for LSB galaxies with realistic SF timescales (e.g., Bell et al., 2000), one can say whether the same sources of viscosity that are applicable in normal galaxies could affect the evolution of LSB galaxies.

The plan of this paper is as follows. In §2, a brief description of the model is given. In §3, the model is calibrated to produce an exponential stellar light distribution for the Milky Way. In §4, the Milky Way-calibrated model is applied to five LSB galaxies. I present my conclusions in §5. As an aside, I discuss viscosity from gas cloud collisions in Appendix A.

## 2 The Model

To investigate the role of viscous evolution in LSB galaxies, I modify the model of Bell & Bower (2000) to include viscous evolution. Following Lin & Pringle (1987a), I adopt a smooth initial gas surface density distribution $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g(r)`$:

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_g(r)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{\Sigma }_0[1+\mathrm{cos}(\pi r/5h)]\hfill & 0r5h\hfill \\ 0\hfill & r>5h,\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
where $`r`$ is the radius, $`h`$ approximates the final exponential scale-length, and 2$`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0`$ is the central surface density (the final exponential central surface density would be roughly $`5\mathrm{\Sigma }_0`$; see the dashed line in Fig. 1). The choice of this particular initial profile is arbitrary: Yoshii & Sommer-Larsen (1989) demonstrate that exponential disks are produced by viscous evolution from any smooth, centrally-concentrated initial profile. The evolution of gas density with time as a function of radius is followed using Eqn. 1.

SF is followed using either i) a gas density-dependent SF law (e.g., Schmidt, 1959) $`\psi _{}=k\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^n`$, where $`k`$ is the rate of SF at a gas surface density of 1 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ pc-2, and $`n`$ dictates how sensitively SF rate depends on gas surface density, or ii) a dynamical timescale-dependent SF law (e.g., Kennicutt, 1998) $`\psi _{}=K\mathrm{\Sigma }_g/\tau _{\mathrm{dyn}}`$, where $`K`$ is the rate of SF at a gas surface density of 1 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ pc-2 and dynamical time of 1 Gyr, and $`\tau _{\mathrm{dyn}}=6.16r(\mathrm{kpc})/V(\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1)`$ Gyr is the time taken to orbit the galaxy at a distance $`r`$. Both SF laws are reasonably consistent with the SF rates and histories of present-day spiral galaxies (e.g., Kennicutt, 1998; Bell & Bower, 2000). In the following, values of $`k`$, $`n`$, $`K`$ and the chemical element yield are fixed at the values quoted in Table 1 of Bell & Bower (2000).

At present, sources of viscosity in galactic disks are not well-understood. In previous studies, the SF and viscous timescales, $`t_{}`$ and $`t_\nu `$, were directly related (where, again, $`t_\nu `$ only applies where the rotation curve is not nearly solid body). The proportionality constant $`\beta =t_{}/t_\nu `$ was constrained to be within half an order of magnitude of unity in order to produce exponential stellar disks over 4–6 disk scale lengths (e.g., Lin & Pringle, 1987a; Hellsten & Sommer-Larsen, 1992; Ferguson & Clarke, 2001). In this work, I wish to relax this constraint to a certain extent. In particular, one of the things that I wish to assess is if $`\beta 1`$ for LSB galaxies, as this would imply a minor role for viscous evolution in LSB galaxies.

In this paper, I explore viscosity due to gravitational instabilities. Since I find later that viscous evolution in Milky Way-type and LSB galaxies is efficient with this physically-motivated prescription, it is sufficient to adopt only one viscosity prescription for the purposes of this paper. Following, e.g., Olivier et al. (1991) I also explored viscosity due to collisions between gas clouds; however, I found that cloud-cloud collisions are incapable of driving significant viscous evolution in any spiral galaxies (see Appendix A for the derivation of this result). I therefore do not consider this prescription further. Large-scale gravitational instabilities give a viscosity (Lin & Pringle, 1987b; Olivier et al., 1991): $`\nu =a_{\mathrm{grav}}\pi ^3G^2\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^2/\kappa ^3`$ where $`a_{\mathrm{grav}}`$ is a constant, $`G`$ is the gravitational constant, and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$ is the gas density in $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ pc-2. The epicyclic frequency $`\kappa `$ in Gyr-1 is given by $`\kappa =\{rd/dr(\mathrm{\Omega }^2)+4\mathrm{\Omega }^2\}^{1/2}`$. I set the viscosity from gravitational instabilities to zero if the disk is gravitationally stable, i.e., if the Toomre (1964) $`Q>1`$, where $`Q=v_s\kappa /\pi G\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$. The gas velocity dispersion $`v_s`$ is assumed to be 6 km s-1 (Kennicutt, 1989; Binney & Tremaine, 1987). The constant $`a_{\mathrm{grav}}`$ is set to produce an exponential stellar disk for the Milky Way (essentially, $`\beta `$ for the cloud-collision and gravitational instability cases is set to be $`1`$: see §3). This value of $`a_{\mathrm{grav}}`$ is then left alone, and the LSB galaxy models are run to test if the difference in rotation curve shape and gas density significantly affects $`\beta `$. This is the central assumption of this analysis.

Stellar populations are modeled using the Bruzual & Charlot (in preparation) stellar population synthesis models (see, e.g., Liu, Charlot & Graham, 2000) adopting a Salpeter IMF with a reduced number of low mass stars (following Bell & de Jong, 2001). I adopt the instantaneous recycling approximation and the closed box approximation (Bell & Bower, 2000). The detailed viscous flow of metals is not tracked in this model. These approximations do not affect the $`K`$-band surface brightness or $`BR`$ color significantly, and therefore will not affect the conclusions of this paper. It is worth noting that use of the $`B`$-band or stellar mass surface density profiles would also not affect the conclusions of this paper.

I solve these equations using a standard first order explicit scheme with 50 equally-spaced radius steps between 0.2$`h`$ and 10$`h`$. Time steps are 4 Myr, for a galaxy age of 12 Gyr. There are two runs per galaxy model with the different SF laws. Following e.g., Lin & Pringle (1987a) and Ferguson & Clarke (2001), I allow mass to be lost from the center of the galaxy (i.e., total galaxy mass is not conserved); however, in practice less than 10% of the total mass is lost for even large amounts of viscous evolution. This does not significantly affect my conclusions, as the galaxies with large amounts of viscous evolution are typically quite luminous, and this ‘lost’ mass is easily accommodated within a bulge component.

## 3 Reproducing the Milky Way

For the Milky Way, I adopt a flat rotation curve at all radii with $`V=220`$ km s-1 (adopting a more realistic rotation curve in the inner parts does not significantly change the results). I choose a value of $`h=2.82`$ kpc, and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0=200`$$`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ pc-2, resulting in disk central surface densities of $`1000`$$`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ pc-2 (see Table 1 for the modeling parameters of this and subsequent galaxy models). These values of $`V`$, $`h`$ and the disk central surface density are in reasonable accord with observations (e.g., Binney & Merrifield, 1998). I assume that the gas disk was assembled instantaneously 12 Gyr ago (assuming more realistic infall histories for any of the models in this paper does not significantly change the results). A choice of $`a_{\mathrm{grav}}=0.02`$ for the gravitational instability model results in a profile which is exponential to within 0.11 mag at $`r5h`$ for the gas-density dependent SF law, and to within 0.14 mag for the dynamical time SF law. In both cases, $`BR=1.1\pm 0.02`$, the gas fraction is 23% $`\pm `$ 3%, and the $`K`$-band central surface brightness is $`17.35\pm 0.15`$ mag arcsec-2. These global parameters are typical of a galaxy of the Milky Way’s luminosity and size (e.g., Bell & de Jong, 2000). Variations of $`a_{\mathrm{grav}}`$ by factors of 2–3 do not significantly affect the surface brightness profiles of the model Milky Way-type galaxies: they are still exponential to $``$20% within 4 disk scale lengths.

There are two interesting points which deserve further discussion. Firstly, my value of $`a_{\mathrm{grav}}`$ results in much slower viscous evolution than estimated by Olivier et al. (1991). Olivier et al. (1991) estimate short viscous timescales $``$0.2 Gyr for gas at $``$8 kpc from the galactic center. In order to keep $`\beta 1`$, it is necessary to have SF timescales $`0.2`$ Gyr. These short timescales violate measured SF timescales in large spiral galaxies in general (e.g., Kennicutt, 1998; Bell & de Jong, 2000), and in the Milky Way in particular ($`10`$ Gyr in the solar cylinder; Rocha-Pinto et al., 2000). In addition, their viscous flows would have velocities $`5`$ km s-1, violating the $`1`$ km s-1 constraint derived from radial metallicity distributions (Lacey & Fall, 1985; Clarke, 1989). In stark contrast, the ‘low’ viscous efficiencies that I adopt result in viscous and SF timescales of $`10`$ Gyr at the solar cylinder, and gaseous flow velocities of $`0.1`$ km s-1: well within observational constraints. Secondly, the model surface brightness profile is exponential to $``$10% despite the ratio of the SF and viscous timescales, $`\beta =t_{}/t_\nu `$, varying with radius by nearly an order of magnitude. This strengthens the conclusion of Hellsten & Sommer-Larsen (1992), who stated that variations in $`\beta `$ by a factor of two with radius resulted in an exponential profile: in fact, an order of magnitude variation in $`\beta `$ with radius is acceptable in some situations.

## 4 Are LSB Galaxies Affected by Viscous Evolution?

The stage is now set to address the role of viscous evolution in LSB galaxies. All of the ingredients are in place: i) accurate observations of rotation curves for real LSB galaxies with well-constrained exponential profiles (required for Equation 1), ii) knowledge about SF timescales in LSB galaxies and plausible SF laws (Bell & Bower, 2000), and iii) estimates of the efficiency of gravitational instability viscosity in Milky Way-type galaxies from §3. The central assumption of this comparison is that the efficiency of viscous processes in LSB galaxies is the same as for Milky Way-type galaxies (i.e., $`a_{\mathrm{grav}}`$ is the same for all galaxies). With this assumption, I am postulating that the physical processes in LSB and Milky Way-type galaxies are identical, and differences in behavior result from differences in rotation curve and gas density only. I will present the analysis for one particular LSB galaxy, ESO-LV 1870510, before extending the analysis to a further four suitable LSB galaxies.

### 4.1 ESO-LV 1870510

ESO-LV 1870510, at a distance of 29 Mpc (Bell et al., 2000), has a slowly-rising, almost solid-body, H$`\alpha `$-derived rotation curve from de Blok et al. (2001, see their Fig. 1 and the inset panel in Fig. 2). Bell et al. (2000) present optical and near-IR photometry (their Fig. 1), which demonstrates that the galaxy is exponential to within 0.1 mag over 4 disk scale lengths. ESO-LV 1870510 has an intrinsic $`B`$-band central surface brightness of 23.75$`\pm `$0.2 mag arcsec-2, implying nearly a factor of 10 lower surface density than the canonical 21.65 mag arcsec-2 of Freeman (1970). For the model, I adopt the following smooth approximation to de Blok’s smoothed rotation curve: $`V=52(1e^{r[\mathrm{kpc}]/2.8})`$ km s-1 (see inset to Fig. 2), a value of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0=16`$$`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ pc-2 and $`h=3.46`$ kpc (see also Table 1).

Fig. 2 shows the resulting $`K`$-band surface brightness profiles of the density-dependent and dynamical time SF law LSB model galaxies. Clearly, the viscous redistribution and SF timescales turn out to be roughly equal, and exponential surface brightness profiles are produced. The stellar disks are exponential to within 0.07 mag (density-dependent SF law) or 0.13 mag (dynamical time SF law) within $`r<4h`$. The model $`BR`$ colors match the observations to $`0.1`$ mag, and the scale lengths, magnitudes and central surface brightnesses match the observations to 20%. ESO-LV 1870510 lacks literature Hi data, however, the model gas fraction of $``$60% is typical of LSB galaxies (e.g., Bell & de Jong, 2000).

#### 4.1.1 Why Can Viscous Evolution Affect LSB Galaxies?

It is interesting to consider why viscous evolution can work with similar efficiency in LSB galaxies and Milky Way-type galaxies. After all, the rotation curves of LSB galaxies rise slowly (see, e.g., the inset panel in Fig. 2), implying that viscous evolution could be much less efficient. Using that $`t_\nu r^2/\nu `$, $`t_\nu r^2\kappa ^3/\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^2`$. Fig. 3 of de Jong & Lacey (2000) shows that Milky Way-type and LSB galaxies have similar scale lengths, therefore characteristic values of $`r`$ are similar for LSB and Milky Way-type galaxies (see also Table 1). The gas density $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$ is a factor of $`10`$ lower in LSB galaxies, which drives up $`t_\nu `$. However, $`\kappa \mathrm{\Omega }V/r`$ (Binney & Tremaine, 1987) is substantially lower in LSB galaxies as $`r`$ is similar but $`V`$ is a factor of a few lower. Consequently $`\kappa ^3/\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^2`$, therefore $`t_\nu `$, are similar for Milky Way-type and LSB galaxies.

Considering the rest of Equation 1, we see that the top term in the equation is reduced for a LSB galaxy by a factor of 100: a factor of 10 from the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$ term and a factor of 10 from $`d\mathrm{\Omega }/dr`$. The bottom term is reduced by a factor of $``$5, simply due to the more solid-body rotation curve shape. Therefore the ratio, and the derivative of the ratio, is roughly a factor of 20 lower for a LSB galaxy. However, the gas densities are roughly a factor of 10 lower, so $`\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_g/t\}/\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$ is only reduced by a factor of 2 or so: viscous evolution from gravitational instability will be nearly as effective in LSB galaxies as it would be in large spiral galaxies! Coupled with the somewhat longer $`t_{}`$ in LSB galaxies, it is clear that $`\beta =t_{}/t_\nu `$ will remain of order unity, easily producing an exponential disk.

#### 4.1.2 Gravitational Instability and LSB Galaxies

I have demonstrated that viscous evolution through gravitational instability can be just as effective in LSB galaxies as in Milky Way-type galaxies. However, this seems to contradict at some level the argument that LSB galaxies are rather more likely the be gravitationally stable than their higher surface brightness counterparts. If LSB galaxies were gravitationally stable, no viscous evolution (at least through gravitational instabilities) would occur. van der Hulst et al. (1993) estimate the Toomre $`Q`$ parameter, finding $`1Q3`$. This can be compared to $`0.5Q2`$ for most luminous spiral galaxies in their inner parts (Kennicutt, 1989). However, there are reasons to believe that van der Hulst et al. (1993) could significantly overestimate $`Q`$. Toomre’s $`Q1/\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$, and poor resolution Hi observations will tend to underestimate $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$. In addition, it is unclear how much molecular hydrogen there is in LSB galaxies, due primarily to the uncertainty in the CO to H2 ratio $`X`$ (see, e.g., Mihos, Spaans & McGaugh, 1999; Boselli, Lequeux & Gavazzi, 2002): a 50% increase in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$ caused by molecular hydrogen in the inner few scale lengths is not unreasonable given that $`X`$ could be a factor of 10 higher than galactic, and given the level of current CO detections of LSB galaxies (Matthews & Gao, 2001). Both of these effects would tend to drive down $`Q`$, making LSB galaxies less stable.

However, the model galaxy has gas densities which are somewhat larger than typical observed densities in LSB galaxies (10 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ pc-2 at the model half-light radius, compared to $``$5 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ pc-2 for observed LSB galaxies). This problem can be alleviated by allowing the model galaxy to be built up by a lengthy gas infall. Assuming an ‘inside-out’ formation scenario with an $`e`$-folding timescale of 2.5 Gyr at the center, and 10 Gyr at $`4h`$ (the infall case of Bell & Bower, 2000), the gas density of the model galaxy is reduced by a factor of two, bringing it much closer to typical, observed gas densities in LSB galaxies. However, viscous evolution still occurs, producing a stellar exponential disk: the viscous evolution basically operates at a level which keeps the LSB galaxy on the edge of gravitational instability throughout its life. Given the considerable observational and modeling uncertainties, it is not unreasonably conservative to argue that LSB galaxies are at the edge of gravitational instability for most of their lives (note that Mihos, McGaugh & de Blok, 1997, also argue for locally unstable LSB disks), and therefore could plausibly undergo significant viscous evolution.

### 4.2 Other LSB galaxies

I have demonstrated that it is possible for the LSB galaxy ESO-LV 1870510 to undergo significant viscous evolution if it is gravitationally unstable for at least part of its life. In this subsection, I repeat the analysis with a further four galaxies with accurate, modelled rotation curves (de Blok et al., 2001) and exponential profiles to good accuracy over at least three disk scale lengths (de Blok, McGaugh & van der Hulst, 1996; Swaters, 1999; Bell et al., 2000): UGC 11557, F568-3, F583-1 and F583-4 (see Table 1 for modeling parameters and Fig. 3 for the results).

In all cases the gas disks can be unstable, and this leads to significant viscous evolution with either the gas density-dependent or dynamical time-dependent SF law. The cloud collision viscosity model gives very little viscous evolution. None of the rotation curves are solid body: most rise slowly out to $``$2$`h`$, and turn over at larger radii. This is common amongst LSB galaxies (e.g., de Blok et al., 2001; Matthews & Gallagher, 2002). The only exception to this is F568-3, which has a rotation curve within $``$1.2$`h`$ which can be modelled as solid body. This leads to a ‘ring’ feature in the viscous model surface brightness profile, where material piles up at $`rh`$ (Fig. 3, solid line with stars). If the rotation curve is allowed to ‘curve’ slightly at the observational $`1\sigma `$ level, the final surface brightness profile smooths considerably, and becomes exponential to within 0.1 mag RMS (Fig. 3, dashed line with stars).

This strengthens the conclusions considerably: it is impossible to rule out a significant role for viscous evolution during the life of five LSB galaxies with exponential surface brightness profiles for which accurate rotation curves are available from the literature.

## 5 Conclusions

Models of galaxy evolution which include viscosity due to non-circular and turbulent gas motions have, for the last 15 years, provided a relatively appealing way of producing accurately exponential stellar disks in large spiral galaxies almost independent of initial conditions. The primary assumption is that the viscous timescale and star formation timescale should be approximately equal. However, galaxies with solid-body rotation curves cannot undergo viscous evolution. Low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies have exponential surface brightness profiles, yet have slowly rising, nearly solid-body, rotation curves. Thus, it could be that LSB galaxies have had little redistribution of gas due to viscous evolution during their lifetimes. Their surface brightness profiles would give unique insight into the initial conditions of galaxy formation.

In this paper, I have constrained the importance of viscous evolution during the life of LSB galaxies. I have adopted star formation laws from the literature, and have tuned the efficiency of viscous processes to reproduce an exponential stellar profile in Milky Way-type galaxies. Conservatively, I have assumed that the physics of turbulence are the same in LSB and Milky Way-type galaxies: any differences in the importance of viscous evolution in the two types of galaxy are the product of differences in rotation curve and gas density only. I then apply this model to LSB galaxies with observed rotation curves and surface brightness profiles. Under the conservative and not unreasonable condition that LSB galaxies are gravitationally unstable for at least part of their lives, I find that viscous evolution from gravitational instabilities is quite effective. Viscous evolution models still offer an attractive way of producing an exponential disk over four or more disk scale lengths, almost independent of initial density distribution, even for LSB galaxies with slowly-rising rotation curves.

Does this have implications for the power of surface brightness profiles to constrain galaxy formation theory? It is impossible at present to predict the degree of viscous evolution that will occur, as the physical mechanisms driving viscous evolution are so poorly constrained. However, this paper has shown that it can plausibly occur in both low and high surface density disk galaxies, and Yoshii & Sommer-Larsen (1989) have shown that it would modify most intial density profiles into an exponential disk. This reduces substantially the ability of observations to rule out models of galaxy formation based on surface brightness profiles. Indeed, the assembly of a disk with a reasonably centrally concentrated profile with roughly the right amount of angular momentum is all that is required of a galaxy formation model. However, it is impossible to reduce the central matter density of a galaxy through viscous processes; therefore, models which overpredict the central mass density of galaxy disks cannot escape the need for revision or modification (see, e.g., van den Bosch, 2001).

I thank Dennis Zaritsky, Erwin de Blok and Stéphane Courteau for useful discussions during the course of this work. Special thanks go to the anonymous referee, whose insightful comments led me to examine cloud-collision viscosity more closely. I was supported by NSF grant AST-9900789.

## Appendix A A. Exploring cloud-cloud viscosity

Here, I briefly discuss cloud-cloud collision viscosity. Despite its frequent use in the literature, it has not been comprehensively derived and so I will explore it here. Following, e.g., Silk & Norman (1981) and Olivier et al. (1991) I assume a cloud-cloud collision rate $`Rn_{\mathrm{cloud}}v_s\pi r_{\mathrm{cloud}}^2`$, where $`n_{\mathrm{cloud}}`$ is the number space density of clouds, $`v_s`$ is the gas velocity dispersion, and $`r_{\mathrm{cloud}}`$ is the typical cloud radius. Assuming that the cloud properties and galaxy scale height are independent of gas surface density, $`n_{\mathrm{cloud}}=\mathrm{\Sigma }_g/(M_{\mathrm{cloud}}h)`$, where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$ is the gas surface density, $`M_{\mathrm{cloud}}`$ is the typical gas cloud mass and $`h`$ is the typical gas scale height. Adopting the cloud-collision parameters from Olivier et al. (1991), $`R0.032v_s\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$ Gyr-1 where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$ is in $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ pc-2 and $`v_s`$ is in km s-1 (so far, this derivation does not significantly deviate from Olivier et al., 1991).

Following Pringle (1981), the kinematic viscosity takes the basic form $`\nu v_s\lambda `$, where $`\lambda `$ is the effective mean free path of clouds before they collide. In the limit that cloud collisions are much more frequent than once per orbit, $`\lambda `$ is equal to the mean free path of the clouds which is $`v_s\tau _c`$, where $`\tau _c=1/R`$ is the cloud-collision timescale. This yields a viscosity $`\nu =32.6\eta _{\mathrm{freq}}v_s/\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$ kpc2 Gyr-1. In the limit of cloud collisions being much less frequent than once per orbit, $`\nu v_s\lambda _r(\tau _c/\tau _\kappa )^1`$ where $`\lambda _rv_s\tau _\kappa `$ is the radial excursion during one epicycle, and $`\tau _\kappa =2\pi /\kappa `$ is the epicycle timescale (Pringle, 1981). In this case, $`\nu v_s^2\tau _\kappa ^2/\tau _c=1.31\eta _{\mathrm{infreq}}v_s^3\mathrm{\Sigma }_g/\kappa ^2`$ kpc2 Gyr-1, where $`v_s`$ is in km s-1, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$ is in $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ pc-2, and $`\kappa `$ is in Gyr-1. Which limit is adopted depends on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$ (assuming that $`v_s`$ is constant between different galaxy types). For gas densities $``$25 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ pc-2, the frequent collision case is more appropriate ($`\tau _c200`$ Myr), and for gas densities $``$25 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ pc-2 the infrequent case is more appropriate ($`\tau _c200`$ Myr), for a constant $`v_s6`$ km s-1.

The crucial issue now is to estimate the efficiencies $`\eta _{\mathrm{freq}}`$ and $`\eta _{\mathrm{infreq}}`$ of the frequent and infrequent cloud-cloud collision cases. This is done by estimating the energy loss per cloud-cloud collision. The specific kinetic energy of a cloud is $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}^2`$, where $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}`$ is the rotation velocity. However, clouds collide with speeds much less than than $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}`$ (because they are almost always in very similar, nearly circular orbits). In this case, the maximum possible specific energy loss is related to their relative speeds $`v_{\mathrm{relative}}^2`$. Therefore, the efficiency of energy loss per collision is $`(v_{\mathrm{relative}}/v_{\mathrm{rot}})^2`$. The relative velocity $`v_{\mathrm{relative}}`$ can be approximated by the difference in velocity caused by the radial excursion of the cloud. Using that $`v_{\mathrm{relative}}=v_{\mathrm{rot}}\mathrm{\Delta }r/r`$, where $`r`$ is the radius, and substituting $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}=r\mathrm{\Omega }`$ ($`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the angular frequency) and $`\mathrm{\Delta }r\lambda `$, $`v_{\mathrm{relative}}\mathrm{\Omega }\lambda `$. For the frequent collision case $`\lambda \tau _cv_s`$, therefore $`v_{\mathrm{relative}}\mathrm{\Omega }/0.032\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$ (where $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is in Gyr-1 and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$ is in $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ pc-2). Thus, $`\eta _{\mathrm{freq}}977/(r^2\mathrm{\Sigma }^2)`$, where $`r`$ is in kpc. For the infrequent collisions case $`\lambda `$ is the maximum epicyclic excursion, which is roughly $`v_s`$ multiplied by the time for 1/4 epicycle $`v_s/\kappa `$. Using that $`\kappa /\mathrm{\Omega }1`$, $`v_{\mathrm{relative}}v_s`$ for the infrequent case, where $`v_s`$ is in km s-1. Therefore, $`\eta _{\mathrm{infreq}}v_s^2/(r^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2)`$.

What are reasonable estimates of the timescales of viscous evolution in the frequent (Milky Way-type galaxy) and infrequent (LSB galaxy) cases? Using $`r=7.5`$ kpc, $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}=220`$ km s-1, $`v_s=6`$ km s-1, and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g=50`$$`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ pc-2 for a Milky Way-type galaxy, I find that $`v_{\mathrm{relative}}20`$ km s-1 and $`t_\nu r^2/\nu 2000`$ Gyr. Similarly, adopting $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g=10`$$`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ pc-2 and $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}=100`$ km s-1 for the LSB galaxy infrequent case, I find $`t_\nu 1000`$ Gyr. Thus, it is fair to conclude that viscosity from cloud-cloud collisions will be unimportant for all spiral galaxies. This is because the low efficiency of energy loss in cloud-cloud collisions $`(v_{\mathrm{relative}}/v_{\mathrm{rot}})^20.01`$, which more than outweighs the fact that cloud collisions tend to happen $`1`$ time per orbit for most spiral galaxies. Of course, if some mechanism ‘whips up’ cloud collision velocities (such as a galaxy interaction), it may be possible to evolve significantly from cloud-cloud viscosity, but this mechanism should not play a significant rôle in the evolution of spiral galaxies in their normal, quiescent mode.


text:
# Axial Vector Current and Coupling of the Quark in the Instanton Model

## I Introduction

The axial coupling constant of the nucleon, deduced from measurements of neutron beta decay, is known to be $`|G_A/G_V|=1.2670\pm 0.0035`$ PDG  in vacuum. Strict chiral invariance would have this ratio be unity, and the substantial difference suggests a deviation in excess of current quark mass effects. Thus it has long been argued that the increase in $`G_A`$ is a result of the spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking that characterizes the QCD vacuum.

Although additional chiral-invariant meson-nucleon couplings can remedy this problem in the linear sigma model Lee , a more fundamental explanation is warranted. The issue is complicated by the difficulties experienced by lattice QCD practitioners BOS , in that such calculations tend to yield values significantly lower than experiment. Possible explanations have recently centered on finite-size effects Jaffe , although the specific physics is unresolved Cohen .

One might also try to deduce the nucleon’s axial coupling by studying that of a constituent quark, denoted in this paper as $`g_A`$. In the non-relativistic limit,

$$G_A=\frac{5}{3}g_A,$$
(1)
but incomplete knowledge of the quark wave function leaves the relativistic corrections unknown. However there has been considerable success in treating the nucleon as massive constituent quarks GellMann , and if the deviation of $`G_A`$ from unity is in fact due to chiral forces the constituent approach should encompass the relevant physics. At the quark level chiral symmetry also demands an axial coupling of unity, which generates an excess of nucleon axial charge when Eq. (1) is directly applied. Studies addressing this predict negative corrections of $`𝒪(1)`$ to $`g_A`$, using the MIT bag model CJJT , in the large-$`N_c`$ limit Weinberg ; BSL , or via perturbative corrections Duck .

In this paper we consider corrections to $`g_A`$ from instantons. The Instanton Liquid Model (ILM), in which the QCD vacuum is populated by classical gauge configurations BPST ; CDG , dynamically generates the constituent quark mass and has consistently led to phenomenological success when applied to problems related to spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking SS ; Diakonov . As detailed below, we find a 25% reduction in the axial coupling from instantons, with only slight sensitivity to the chiral limit. This is in excellent agreement with experiment if corrections to Eq. (1) are small.

To determine the axial coupling we will first carefully analyze the axial current. Since instanton-induced interactions between quarks are non-local, the currents associated with conserved quantities are non-trivial. Next, given the necessity of pions in axial phenomena, meson correlation functions are briefly reviewed. We then derive the axial current and verify the importance of the pion pole in the axial form factor, $`h_A(q^2)`$. Finally, the leading corrections to the coupling $`g_A`$ are computed, taking into account multi-instanton effects and substantial non-local vertex corrections. In the chiral limit we find $`g_A=0.73`$ and estimate that with a physical pion mass $`g_A=0.77`$. With naive application of Eq. (1), these correspond to a nucleon axial couping of 1.22 and 1.28, respectively.

## II Non-Locality and Conserved Currents

The effects of an instanton liquid background are most economically encoded in an effective quark action DP2 . Taking the exact zero-mode solutions to the Dirac equation and isolating them as the dominant low-energy effects leads to a $`2N_f`$-quark vertex function tHooft , similar to the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model of QCD NJL ; VL ; Klevansky . A well-studied simplification of this model, chiral Random Matrix Theory, has shown that chiral symmetry breaking via random overlap integrals reproduces Dirac eigenvalue correlations as computed on the lattice BMSVW . Thus such an approach seems to indeed contain the essence of non-perturbative QCD. Furthermore, the ILM relies on only two parameters: the instanton density and average instanton size. Both of these were phenomenologically fixed long ago with the vacuum energy density and chiral condensate Shuryak ; DP2  and measured on the lattice HN . These parameters determine the diluteness of the instanton liquid, the ratio of the average size to inter-instanton spacing, to be about 1/3, a somewhat small parameter which allows for perturbative treatment of the instanton-induced vertex.

The Eulcidean effective action for $`N_f`$ flavors in the chiral limit is written Diakonov ,

$$S=d^4x\psi ^{}(x)i/\psi (x)+i\lambda 𝑑Ud^4z\underset{f}{\overset{N_f}{}}\left[d^4x_fd^4y_f\psi _f^{}(x_f)i/\mathrm{\Phi }(x_fz,U)\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}(y_fz,U)i/\psi ^f(y_f)\right],$$
(2)
where $`U`$ is the instanton’s $`2\times N_c`$ color/spin orientation matrix and $`z`$ is its position. The $`\mathrm{\Phi }(x)`$ is the zero mode solution for fermions in the field of one instanton, and its Fourier transform is the form factor,

$$f(p)=2x\left[I_1(x)K_0(x)I_0(x)K_1(x)+\frac{1}{x}I_1(x)K_1(x)\right]_{x=p\rho /2},$$
(3)
which provides a natural momentum cutoff of scale $`\rho ^1`$. We have left out additional (quarkless) $`\lambda `$ terms which relate this coupling constant, which is in fact a Lagrange multiplier, to the instanton density, $`N/V`$.

Because of non-locality Eq. (2) is not invariant under symmetry transformations. Since bulk observables are often insensitive to this problem it is usually ignored, however when addressing currents the dependence is crucial. A literature exists in which non-local interactions are modified to be invariant Schwinger ; Terning ; BKN ; BB ; PB ; GBR ; ADT  and we follow the same procedure here. Taking the non-local four-fermion interaction as the starting point, it then becomes a matter of multiplying each quark operator by a path-ordered exponential in the background of a source gauge field $`a_\mu `$, replacing the Euclidean quark fields as:

$`\psi (x)`$ $``$ $`W(z,x)\psi (x),`$
$`\psi ^{}(x)`$ $``$ $`\psi ^{}(x)\gamma _0W(x,z)\gamma _0,`$
with the operator Schwinger

$$W(x,y)=𝒫\mathrm{exp}\left(i_x^y𝑑s_\mu a_\mu ^aT^a\right).$$

As has been pointed out in the cited works, the operators $`W(x,y)`$ must be path-ordered and the choice of path integrated over is not unique. However, we are primarily concerned with the longitudinal currents, for which results are independent of any particular choice of path PB .

Thus we write the modified action as

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^4x\psi ^{}(x)i/\psi (x)}`$ (4)
$`+i\lambda {\displaystyle 𝑑Ud^4z\underset{f}{\overset{N_f}{}}\left[d^4x_fd^4y_f\psi _f^{}(x_f)\gamma _0W(x_f,z)\gamma _0i/\mathrm{\Phi }(x_fz)\mathrm{\Phi }^{}(y_fz)i/W(z,y_f)\psi ^f(y_f)\right]}.`$
We now concentrate on the case of two light quarks, $`N_f=2`$.

The Noether currents can be evaluated directly from the action. In momentum space,

$$j_\mu ^a(q)=\frac{\delta S}{\delta a_\mu ^a(q)}|_{a_\mu ^a=0}.$$

We thus have, after Fourier transforming the fields and averaging over colors,

$$j_\mu (q)=\frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}\psi ^{}(p)\gamma _\mu T\psi (p+q)+j_\mu ^L(q)+j_\mu ^R(q),$$
(5)
where the left-handed non-local term is

$`j_\mu ^L(q)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda (2\pi \rho )^4}{N_c^21}}ϵ^{f_1f_2}ϵ_{g_1g_2}\left(\delta _{j_1}^{i_1}\delta _{j_2}^{i_2}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_c}}\delta _{j_2}^{i_1}\delta _{j_1}^{i_2}\right){\displaystyle d^4zd^4x\frac{d^4p_1}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{d^4p_2}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{d^4k_1}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{d^4k_2}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{d^4p^{}}{(2\pi )^4}}`$ (6)
$`\times {\displaystyle _x^z}ds_\mu e^{iqs}\{e^{ix(p_1p^{})iz(p^{}+p_2k_1k_2)}\left[\psi _L^{}(p_1)\gamma _0T\gamma _0\right]_{f_1i_1}\psi _L^{g_1j_1}(k_1)f(p^{})f(k_1)`$
$`e^{ix(k_1p^{})iz(p_1+p_2p^{}k_2)}\psi _{Lf_1i_1}^{}(p_1)\left[T\psi _L(k_1)\right]^{g_1j_1}f(p_1)f(p^{})\}\psi ^{}_{Lf_2i_2}(p_2)\psi _L^{g_2j_2}(k_2)f(p_2)f(k_2),`$
and the right-handed $`j_\mu ^R(q)`$ is similar defined. Group indices have been suppressed; note that these are carried by the operators $`T`$. The instanton or anti-instanton at the core of each vertex naturally splits the quark fields into right- or left-handed spinors, $`\psi _{R/L}=\frac{1}{2}(1\pm \gamma _5)\psi `$. Since we are only concerned here with spin structures of the identity matrix or $`\gamma _5`$, the decomposition is trivial. Carrying out the spatial integrations, we have

$`j_\mu ^L(q)={\displaystyle \frac{q_\mu }{q^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{i\lambda (2\pi \rho )^4}{N_c^21}}ϵ^{f_1f_2}ϵ_{g_1g_2}\left(\delta _{j_1}^{i_1}\delta _{j_2}^{i_2}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_c}}\delta _{j_2}^{i_1}\delta _{j_1}^{i_2}\right){\displaystyle \frac{d^4p_1}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{d^4p_2}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{d^4k_1}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{d^4k_2}{(2\pi )^4}\delta (p_1+p_2k_1k_2+q)}`$
$`\times \left\{\left[\psi _L^{}(p_1)\gamma _0T\gamma _0\right]_{f_1i_1}\psi _L^{g_1j_1}(k_1)\left[f(p_1)f(p_1+q)\right]f(k_1)\psi _{Lf_1i_1}^{}(p_1)\left[T\psi _L(k_1)\right]^{g_1j_1}f(p_1)\left[f(k_1)f(k_1q)\right]\right\}`$
$`\times \psi _{Lf_2i_2}^{}(p_2)\psi _L^{g_2j_2}(k_2)f(p_2)f(k_2).`$ (7)
In the event of spontaneous symmetry breaking, quark operators which overlap with the condensate can be paired into loops BB ; CD2 . When chiral symmetry is broken an effective quark mass is generated, dependent on four-momentum $`p=\sqrt{p_\mu p_\mu }`$ as

$$M(p)=Mf(p)^2.$$

The constant $`M`$ is the solution to a gap equation obtained by minimization with respect to the coupling $`\lambda `$ DP1 ,

$$\frac{N}{V}=4N_c\frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{M(p)^2}{p^2+M(p)^2},$$
(8)
and the constant $`N/V=(200\mathrm{MeV})^4`$ is the instanton density. With the phenomenological $`\rho =1/3`$ fm, one finds $`M=345`$ MeV. In this case the current, Eq. (7), reduces to

$`j_\mu ^L(q)=i{\displaystyle \frac{q_\mu }{q^2}}{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}}\psi _L^{}(p)\{M(p+q)\gamma _0T\gamma _0M(p)T`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda (2\pi \rho )^4}{N_c}}f(p)f(p+q){\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}}f(k){\displaystyle \frac{M(k)}{k^2+M(k)^2}}\mathrm{Tr}[f(k+q){\displaystyle \frac{1\gamma _5}{2}}\gamma _0T\gamma _0f(kq)T{\displaystyle \frac{1\gamma _5}{2}}]\}\psi _L(p+q),`$ (9)
where the trace is over spin only.

Further reduction of this still-unwieldy expression requires specifying a particular current and associated group elements $`T`$. The simplest example is the quark number current, $`B_\mu `$, where $`T=𝟙`$:

$$B_\mu (q)=\frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}\psi ^{}(p)\left\{\gamma _\mu i\frac{q_\mu }{q^2}\left[M(p+q)M(p)\right]\right\}\psi (p+q).$$
(10)
As $`q0`$, this becomes CD1 ; GBR

$$B_\mu (0)=\frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}\psi ^{}(p)\left(\gamma _\mu i\frac{dM(p)}{dp_\mu }\right)\psi (p).$$

It is easy now to see that the $`q`$-dependent term in Eq. (10), a result of the non-locality of the interaction, is necessary for current conservation. With Eq. (10) and the Dirac equation,

$$[p/iM(p)]\psi (p)=0,$$
(11)
we see the standard cancellation ensues and

$$q_\mu B_\mu (q)=0.$$
(12)
This is the simplest illustration of the more general rule, which becomes more complicated when the axial isovector current is considered. But before analyzing this, we review the pion’s derivation in the ILM.

## III Meson Correlation Functions

The pion’s role in axial charge currents has been long established. To be made explicit in the ILM, one must sum all ladder diagrams using the ’t Hooft vertex, a series shown in Fig. 1. This was originally done in Ref. DP3 , although the advent of the effective action (4) has since made this procedure simpler.

In the chiral limit, one finds the expected pole in the pion propagator as $`q^20`$. Furthermore, the use of non-local corrections to the axial currents has been shown to produce the required transversality in the mesonic current and properly relate the pion decay and renormalization constants BB . Following the results of these cited works, we have the pion correlation function of Fig. 1,

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_\pi ^{AB}(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}\left(\psi ^{}(p)\tau ^A\gamma _5\psi (p+q)\right)\left(\psi ^{}(p+q)\tau ^B\gamma _5\psi (p)\right)}`$ (13)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^{AB}}{4N_c^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{i\lambda }}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{N_cM^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{M(p)M(p+q)\left[p(p+q)+M(p)M(p+q)\right]}{\left(p^2+M(p)^2\right)\left[(p+q)^2+M(p+q)^2\right]}}\right)^1.`$
The gap equation (8) can be written CD1

$$\frac{1}{i\lambda }=\frac{2}{N_cM^2}\frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{M(p)^2}{p^2+M(p)^2},$$
(14)
and one finds, upon expanding in small $`q^2`$,

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_\pi ^{AB}(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^{AB}}{4N_cq^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{M^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{M(p)^2\frac{1}{2}pM(p)M^{}(p)+\frac{1}{4}p^2M^{}(p)^2}{\left[p^2+M(p)^2\right]^2}}\right)^1`$ (15)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{\pi qq}^2}{q^2}}\delta ^{AB}.`$
The coupling constant is determined thusly by the compositeness condition Weinberg2  and, with the standard instanton parameters listed above, we find $`g_{\pi qq}=3.78`$. The pion and other channels were analyzed in an NJL model with alternative form factors by Plant and Birse, who found $`g_{\pi qq}=3.44`$ for the pion and the sigma parameters $`g_{\sigma qq}=3.51`$ and $`m_\sigma =443`$ MeV PB . This required extracting the sigma pole, and instead of repeating this procedure or fitting the sigma correlation function Hutter  we will simply scale our pion-quark coupling in a similar manner to obtain $`g_{\sigma qq}=3.86`$. These two channels will be sufficient in the following analysis of the axial properties of the quark.

## IV Axial Current and Form Factor

We now address the axial isovector current. A key experimental quantity is the matrix element of the current, $`A_\mu ^a(p_2p_1)`$, taken with initial and final state nucleons of momenta $`p_1`$ and $`p_2`$. Here we compute the analogous quantity with quark fields:

$$\psi (p_2)|A_\mu ^a(q)|\psi (p_1)=u^{}(p_2)\frac{\tau ^a}{2}\left[\gamma _\mu \gamma _5g_A(q^2)+q_\mu \gamma _5h_A(q^2)\right]u(p_1),$$
(16)
where the $`u^{}(p_2)`$ and $`u(p_1)`$ are the Euclidean spinor solutions of the Dirac equation for free quarks, and $`q=p_2p_1`$. We are ultimately interested in the limit of $`p_1=p_2=0`$, or on-shell quarks at zero momentum transfer, with the constant $`g_A=g_A(0)`$ the axial coupling. First we consider $`h_A(q^2)`$, the axial form factor. With a nonzero $`g_A`$ and current conservation, it is clear in the chiral limit that $`h_A(q^2)`$ has a pole at $`q^2=0`$, identified as the pion. Through explicit construction, we will show this pole is manifest in the ILM.

Inserting $`T=\gamma _5\tau /2`$ into Eq. (9), we have bare and single instanton (and anti-instanton) contributions in

$`A_\mu ^a(q)_{\text{2}a}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}}\psi ^{}(p){\displaystyle \frac{\tau ^a}{2}}\gamma _\mu \gamma _5\psi (p+q)+i{\displaystyle \frac{q_\mu }{q^2}}{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}}\psi ^{}(p){\displaystyle \frac{\tau ^a}{2}}\gamma _5\{M(p+q)+M(p)`$ (17)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2i\lambda (2\pi \rho )^4}{N_c}}f(p)f(p+q){\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}}f(k)[f(k+q)+f(kq)]{\displaystyle \frac{M(k)}{k^2+M(k^2)}}\}\psi (p+q).`$
Graphically, this is Fig. 2a.

Clearly, no amount of labor will reveal this to be a conserved current; as the appearance of the chiral Goldstone boson is a multi-instanton effect, so too is axial vector current conservation. Pion tadpoles, as rendered in Figs. 2b and 2c, are necessary to remove the finite divergence of $`A_\mu ^a`$. The first is a bare current insertion, the second the non-local piece. Their sum is

$$A_\mu ^a(q)_{\text{2}b+\text{2}c}=\frac{q_\mu }{q^2}\frac{2\lambda (2\pi \rho )^4}{N_c}\frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}f(p)f(p+q)\psi ^{}(p)\frac{\tau ^a}{2}\gamma _5\psi (p+q)\frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}f(k)\left[f(k+q)+f(kq)\right]\frac{M(k)}{k^2+M(k)^2}.$$
(18)
This cancels the final term in Eq. (17) and the full current is

$$A_\mu ^a(q)=\frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}\psi ^{}(p)\left\{\gamma _\mu +\frac{q_\mu }{q^2}\left[iM(p)+iM(p+q)\right]\right\}\gamma _5\frac{\tau ^a}{2}\psi (p+q).$$
(19)
The first term is the bare axial coupling, unity with the definition of Eq. (16), and the second is the pion pole carried by the axial form factor,

$$h_A(q^2)=i\frac{M(p+q)+M(p)}{q^2}.$$
(20)
Note that at long wavelength the leading divergent part of the form factor is the non-local, quark level version of the classic nucleon result, $`h_A(q^2)=2iM_N/q^2`$. The pion pole similarly couples separately to each constituent quark.

It is now clear, with the Dirac equation (11), that

$$q_\mu A_\mu ^a(q)=0.$$
(21)
Equivalently, with the propagator,

$$S(p)=\frac{p/+iM(p)}{p^2+M(p)^2},$$

the Ward-Takahashi Identity is satisfied,

$$q_\mu \mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu 5}^a=\frac{\tau ^a}{2}\left[\gamma _5S(p+q)^1+S(p)^1\gamma _5\right].$$
(22)
## V Axial Coupling Constant

The axial form factor involved the effects of multiple instantons, with pions transferring $`t`$-channel momentum. Similar propagation in the $`s`$-channel contributes to the axial coupling constant. While still dominant, the pion is not the only relevant resonance in this channel. Since the sigma’s coupling constant is of comparable size, and its mass is only slightly greater than that of a constituent quark, its effects will also be taken into account. Higher resonances, such as the $`\rho `$ and $`A_1`$ vectors, are both substantially heavier and have quark-meson couplings a mere third of the scalar and pseudoscalar PB ; Hutter . With the leading contributions of order $`g_{iqq}^2`$, these are safely ignored.

In Eq. (19) we have seen that the bare $`g_A`$ is unity. To this we first add the pion contribution of Fig. 3a, which is

$$g_A^{\text{3}a,\pi }=\frac{g_{\pi qq}^2}{2M}\frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{M(p)}{p^2}\frac{p^2+2M(p)^2}{[p^2+M(p)^2]^2}.$$
(23)
After evaluation, the identical sigma contribution differs only by the coupling constant and massive propagator in the integrand,

$$g_A^{\text{3}a,\sigma }=\frac{g_{\sigma qq}^2}{2M}\frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{M(p)}{p^2+m_\sigma ^2}\frac{p^2+2M(p)^2}{[p^2+M(p)^2]^2}.$$
(24)
These expressions evaluate to $`0.102`$ and $`0.0425`$, respectively when we take the parameters described in Section III.

The non-local contributions couple the axial current directly to the four-quark vertex, as shown in Fig. 3c. With an internal pion, we find

$$g_A^{\text{3}b,\pi }=\frac{3g_{\pi qq}^2}{4M}\frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{M^{}(p)}{p[p^2+M(p)^2]},$$
(25)
and for the sigma,

$$g_A^{\text{3}b,\sigma }=\frac{g_{\sigma qq}^2}{4M}\frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{pM^{}(p)}{(p^2+m_\sigma ^2)[p^2+M(p)^2]}.$$
(26)
Numerically, we obtain $`0.101`$ and $`0.0236`$ for these corrections. Note that both numbers are comparable to those of Fig. 3a, i.e. the non-local corrections are not suppressed in any systematic way.

In the chiral limit, we therefore find

$$g_A=10.1020.04250.1010.0236=0.73,$$

in excellent agreement with the non-relativistically deduced value.

The vector current, to which the axial coupling is compared experimentally, receives no contributions from the non-local vertices. Furthermore, a critical sign difference in the numerator as compared to Eqs. (23) and (24) leads to a finite but very small contribution from each diagram, summing to only two percent of the bare coupling. Thus we can ignore such instanton effects in the coupling $`g_V`$ and take it to be unity.

In order to estimate the correction from finite current quark masses, we assume larger masses for the internal meson propagators. With the physical pion mass, $`m_\pi =138`$ MeV, the instanton calculations of Hutter Hutter  generate a sigma mass of $`m_\sigma =540`$ MeV. Reevaluating, we naturally find a deduction in these subtractions,

$$g_A=10.0790.0360.0940.021=0.77.$$

However, this is a mere 5% increase compared to the chiral limit, and in fact places the result extremely close to the pseudo-experimental value.

We are ultimately interested in the nucleon axial coupling, and in the non-relativistic limit we find

$$G_A=\frac{5}{3}g_A=\{\begin{array}{cc}1.22& \text{for }m_\pi =0\hfill \\ 1.28& \text{for }m_\pi =140\text{ MeV}\hfill \end{array}.$$
(27)
The physical value, $`G_A=1.2670`$ PDG <sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1 Our convention differs from that reported by the Particle Data Group by an overall sign. , lies in between.

## VI Conclusions

Through an analysis of current conservation in the instanton liquid model, we found that terms arising from the non-locality of the ’t Hooft vertex were central to maintaining the symmetries of the theory. This can be thought of as a correction for the truncation of quark basis states, for we have isolated the zero modes and removed them from the dynamics. Reintroducing the symmetries to the volume of this extended interaction vertex via path-ordered exponentials recovers the symmetries, as has been noted by other authors some time ago Terning ; BKN . A general form of current corrections has been computed here, followed by specialization to the axial iso-vector case.

After these modifications the pion pole appears as a $`t`$-channel quark-antiquark correlation, governing each constituent quark’s axial form factor and maintaining current conservation. Similar multi-instanton corrections, when applied with $`s`$-channel chiral mesons, lead to an axial coupling constant of the quark of $`g_A=0.73`$. In the non-relativistic limit this corresponds to a nucleon coupling of $`G_A=1.22`$, within four percent of the experimental value. Away from the chiral limit, when the pion is set to its physical mass, agreement improves to within one percent. These numbers are obtained with the two standard inputs of the instanton vacuum, the number density and average size, and no additional parameters. While there are additional corrections from vector mesons, the significantly lower coupling constants and higher masses render them negligible. However, the non-local current terms lead to contributions comparable to the local ones and cannot be disregarded.

Our results suggest that the ILM contains the primary effects which lead to the observed vacuum axial coupling of 1.267. Given that this variance from unity is a likely result of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking, a central result of the ILM, it is not surprising that instantons contribute favorably. It is, however, noteworthy in its implication that relativistic wave function corrections to the constituent quark are nearly negligible.

###### Acknowledgements.

I thank T. Schäfer and G. Miller for useful conversations. This work was supported by US-DOE grant DE-FG03-97ER4014.