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# QSOs and Absorption Line Systems Surrounding the Hubble Deep Field

## 1 Introduction

Deep galaxy redshift samples are permitting a new and often surprising view of the Universe at much younger epochs, and into which the role of gas, both hydrogen and processed, via QSO absorption line systems can be incorporated. Only recently, and with the help of the 10-m Keck telescopes, have deep galaxy redshift surveys been able to measure properties of galaxies at some of the redshifts ($`2.5z4.5`$) which have been easily accessible to absorption line studies for over three decades. Combining the study of QSO absorbers and galaxy surveys has the potential to greatly enhance our understanding of the formation and evolution galaxies as well as the large-scale structures which typically contain them. For example, even if galaxies and absorbers are closely related, biasing, which plays an important role in deciphering structure formation, is expected to be different for for galaxies, QSOs, absorbers, and the various classes of each (e.g. Demiański & Doroshkevich, 1999; Cen et al., 1998; Fang & Jing, 1998; Quashnock & Vanden Berk, 1998; Bi & Fang, 1996).

A generic result of the deep galaxy pencil-beam surveys is that half or more of the galaxies measured tend to lie in very narrow redshift “spikes” which are present to redshifts of at least $`z=1`$ (Cohen et al., 1996a, b) and are often found at much higher redshifts ($`z3`$) in the “dropout” surveys (Steidel et al., 1998; Adelberger et al., 1998). The number density, redshift spacing, density enhancements, velocity dispersions, and morphological mixtures, all support the hypothesis that these structures in redshift space are parts of the precursors to present-day galaxy superclusters and walls (Cohen et al., 1996a, b). This evidence is mostly circumstantial so far, since the deep pencil-beam surveys cover only very small (typically 50 sq. arcmin. or less) disjoint areas of the sky. Additional but shallower redshift surveys have been carried out in narrow fields adjacent to at least one deep pencil beam survey, which have supported the the idea that the redshift structures are coherent in the transverse spatial dimension on scales up to at least a degree, and for redshifts up to at least $`z0.4`$ (Cohen et al., 1999). Extending this type of survey to deeper redshifts is difficult not only due to the faintness of the galaxies, but in the redshift range $`1.2z2`$ there is a lack of redshifted galaxy spectral features available at optical wavelengths. It is a highly desirable but currently difficult goal of future redshift surveys to cover both larger areas and a more complete redshift range. QSO absorption line systems offer a means of efficiently extending these studies to wider volumes and higher redshift, which is the aim of the program described here.

The approach is to search for intervening absorption line systems in the spectra of QSOs at small angular separations. The selection function for heavy-element QSO absorption line systems, identified mainly by C iv $`\lambda `$1550Å and Mg ii $`\lambda `$2799Å doublet transitions, is luminosity independent, and limited at high redshift only by the emission redshift of the backlighting QSOs. In optical spectra Mg ii lines can be detected from redshifts of $`z0.152.0`$ and C iv lines from $`z1`$ to over 4. Absorption surveys towards groups of QSO sightlines have been successfully used to trace structure in three dimensions at high redshift (Crotts, 1985, 1989; Jakobsen & Perryman, 1992; Foltz et al., 1993; Elowitz et al., 1995; Dinshaw & Impey, 1996; Williger et al., 1996; Vanden Berk et al., 1999; Impey et al., 1999). A few QSOs have also been observed directly within the areas covered by the galaxy surveys, and their spectra have revealed absorption line systems that very often lie within the redshift peaks defined by the galaxies (Steidel et al., 1998). These studies have demonstrated the utility of absorption line systems in probing large-scale structure both in radial and angular dimensions, and of using large-scale structure studies to decipher the relationship between galaxies and absorbing gas.

QSOs bright enough to use for 3-dimensional absorption line studies generally have a high enough angular density so that suitable groups can be found in virtually any field of sufficiently high galactic latitude. For example, most UVX QSO surveys reveal a density of about 30 QSOs per sq. degree to a limiting magnitude of $`B21`$ (e.g. Zhan et al., 1989), which is a practical limit for absorption line surveys with 4-m class telescopes. To take full advantage of this technique, one should select fields in which deep galaxy redshift surveys have also taken place. The galaxy and absorber surveys are then complementary: the galaxies provide the redshift locations and velocity dispersions of structures, while the absorbers can be used to quickly and efficiently widen the survey to larger areas and additional redshift ranges, and probe the otherwise invisible structure of the gas.

The Hubble Deep Field (HDF; Williams et al., 1996) is the site of one of the most complete and comprehensive sets of deep redshift surveys, with over $`300`$ measured redshifts in an area of only $`50`$ sq. arcmin. (Cohen et al., 1996a; Steidel et al., 1996; Lowenthal et al., 1997; Guzmán et al., 1997; Phillips et al., 1997; Hogg et al., 1998). The measured redshifts lie in the range $`z1.3`$ and $`z2.0`$, with a gap between $`1.3`$ and $`2.0`$ due to restrictions of optical spectroscopy. We have chosen the area surrounding the Hubble Deep Field for our initial QSO/absorber study because of the large and continuing amount of research devoted to this sightline, and because it is easily accessible not only by northern-hemisphere telescopes, but also to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) which can be used for follow-up observations of the low-redshift Ly $`\alpha `$ systems. Indeed, this latter approach is the primary justification for the construction of the Hubble Deep Field South, and a survey similar to ours for additional QSOs in that direction of the sky is currently taking place (Teplitz et al., 1998). Liu et al. (1999, hereafter LPIF) recently carried out a QSO survey in the one square degree surrounding the HDF, and found 30 QSOs brighter than $`B=21`$. While the LPIF survey and ours have similar goals and survey depths, ours uses 5-band photometry (LPIF used only $`U,B,\mathrm{and}R`$ bands) to search for high-redshift QSOs, and we have started QSO absorption line follow-up spectroscopy. Comparisons of the two surveys will be made when appropriate. In this paper we present our initial results on the QSO survey towards the HDF (there are no reasonably bright QSOs inside the HDF itself), and our preliminary absorption line study of 3 of the QSO lines-of-sight. The imaging observations and photometry, QSO candidate selection and verification, and QSO absorption spectroscopy, are presented in § 2, § 3, and § 4 respectively. We discuss the distributions of the QSOs and absorbers relative to the galaxy redshift sample in § 5. A summary is given in § 6.

## 2 $`U,B,V,R,I`$ Imaging and Photometry

### 2.1 Observations and Image Reduction

Images centered on the Hubble Deep Field were taken at McDonald Observatory using the Prime Focus Camera (PFC) mounted on the 0.76 m telescope. The PFC is a dedicated prime focus (f/3.0) corrector with a $`2048\times 2048`$ Loral Fairchild CCD, which covers an area of $`46.25\times 46.25`$ sq. arcminutes (a plate scale of $`1.355`$ arcsec$`/`$pixel). One CCD field, centered on the HDF, was imaged many times in each of the five filters of the Bessel $`UBVRI`$ system. Small ($`50`$ pixel) offsets were made between each of the exposures to facilitate the removal of CCD chip defects and cosmic ray events.

The observations were made on several nights in late February and early March, 1998. The seeing was exceptionally good on two of the nights, yielding point spread functions with typical FWHM less than 2 pixels. These were also the only photometric nights, such that the standard star observations were useful for absolute photometric calibrations. About half of the images in each band were taken in these conditions. The seeing was substantially worse during the other nights, and it turned out that the co-addition of frames taken on those nights did not improve the image depths enough to justify the loss of morphological information and close-source separation. The primary goal of the QSO search is to identify QSOs bright enough for absorption line system spectroscopy follow-up, so the marginal improvement in magnitude limits is not ultimately important.

The raw images were reduced using a package of IRAF111IRAF is written and supported by the IRAF programming group at the National Optical Astronomy Observatories (NOAO) in Tucson, Arizona. scripts written by Inger Jørgensen specifically to reduce McDonald PFC imaging data. Individual science frames were corrected for bias level, differential shutter open time, flat fields, and illumination gradients. Science frames in each band were co-added taking into account seeing, bad pixels, background level, and noise in each frame. The total exposure times and FWHM for the final coadded science images is given in Table 1.

### 2.2 Photometry

Standard star observations were taken each night the sky appeared to be photometric. The photometric stability was acceptable on only two of the nights. Typically $`45`$ Johnson-Kron-Cousins $`UBVRI`$ standard star fields from the list of Landolt (1992) were observed each night at high and low airmasses. The standard star frames were reduced in the same way as the science frames (but with no coaddition). Aperture photometry was performed on all of the standard stars in the frames, and an aperture correction was determined for each filter.

Zero point offsets ($`u_0,b_0,v_0,r_0,i_0`$), extinction coefficients ($`u_1,b_1,v_1,r_1,i_1`$), and color corrections ($`u_2,b_2,v_2,r_2,i_2`$) were determined for the two photometric nights, by interactively fitting the parameters of sets of equations like those below. The equations relate the aperture-corrected instrumental magnitudes ($`u,b,v,r,i`$) to the standard Johnson-Kron-Cousins magnitudes ($`U,B,V,R,I`$), the airmass of the observations ($`X_u,X_b,X_v,X_r,X_i`$), and a color term:

$`u`$ $`=`$ $`U+u_0+u_1\times X_u+u_2\times (UB)`$ (1)
$`b`$ $`=`$ $`B+b_0+b_1\times X_b+b_2\times (BV)`$ (2)
$`v`$ $`=`$ $`V+v_0+v_1\times X_v+v_2\times (VR)`$ (3)
$`r`$ $`=`$ $`R+r_0+r_1\times X_r+r_2\times (VR)`$ (4)
$`i`$ $`=`$ $`I+i_0+i_1\times X_i+i_2\times (RI)`$ (5)
Systems of equations with many different color terms were fit, since not all science objects were detected in every co-added image. The equations were transformed to yield functions for each of the standard magnitudes. The coefficients varied slightly between the two nights, so separate transformations were applied to the data taken on each of the nights. No correction was made for Galactic reddening, since the direction towards the HDF has a very small reddening factor (Williams et al., 1996).

Objects in the co-added science frames were detected, and their fluxes measured, using the program SExtractor (Bertin & Arnouts, 1996). SExtractor determines the background, detects objects, deblends multiple sources extracted as single objects, measures magnitudes, and discriminates between point-like and extended objects. The program parameters were adjusted so that all objects clearly identified as separate objects by eye were detected and deblended with SExtractor. The SExtractor “best estimate” (using either adaptive aperture or corrected isophotal photometry; Bertin & Arnouts, 1996) of the total flux for each object, was used for magnitude calculations. SExtractor was also run on the standard star frames in order to compare the aperture-corrected and SExtractor magnitude estimates. There was a small ($`<3\%`$) offset between the two estimates for the standard stars, which did not appear to be magnitude dependent; this offset was applied to the SExtractor magnitudes of the science objects.

An effective airmass for each co-added image was determined by fitting a line to the individual science frame airmasses vs. the instrumental magnitude differences between the co-added frame and the individual frames. The effective airmass (the $`y`$-intercept of the line fit) for each co-added image was used in the photometric transformation equations.

Science objects were matched on all co-added frames in which they were detected. The final standard magnitude determinations were made for each science object, using the transformation equations, including the color term if possible. If an object was detected in only one frame (for example, faint objects in the $`R`$ band image, or objects close to a non-overlapping frame edge), no color term was applied.

Uncertainties in the magnitude estimates are given by SExtractor, based upon the flux and extent of the object, and the background variance. These estimates agreed well with uncertainties based upon variations among individual science frames, except for saturated objects. Stars become saturated in our images at approximately $`U=12.3,B=14.5,V=13.8,R=14.1,\mathrm{and}I=14.1`$. We have used the SExtractor estimates for the magnitude uncertainties except for objects brighter than the saturation level, which we simply flagged as “saturated”. The magnitude uncertainties, shown in Fig. 1, reach the 10% level at $`U=20.1,B=21.3,V=21.1,R=21.1,\mathrm{and}I=20.2`$.

Aside from the statistical uncertainties, there may be systematic uncertainties in the magnitude estimates due to a variety of possible causes. For our purposes, systematic uncertainties are not worrisome as long as the stellar locus is well defined by the measured colors, and outliers can be easily identified. However, accurate magnitudes in an absolute sense are necessary for other uses of the data, and for comparison with other studies. To check this, we have compared our $`UBR`$ magnitudes with those of LPIF (who did not take observations in the $`V`$ or $`I`$ bands), for objects common to the two lists. The $`B`$ and $`R`$ band measurements in each set are not significantly different, however, our measured $`U`$ magnitudes are brighter on average by 0.13 mag, which is about 4 standard errors of the mean away from no difference in the $`U`$ measurements. The vast majority of the objects used for comparison are fainter than $`U=20.1`$, the 10% uncertainty level of our $`U`$ band data, which may account for the larger difference. It is also possible that since all of our $`U`$ band observations were done on a single night, the difference can be attributed to uncorrected sky variations. In any case, the color-color diagrams (§ 3) appear to be in good agreement with those of other studies, and we have not applied additional photometric corrections.

### 2.3 Astrometry

Astrometry was performed by comparing the pixel coordinates (determined using SExtractor) of stars in our field to the J2000 equatorial coordinates given in the HST Guide Star Catalog222The Guide Star Catalog was produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute under U.S. Government grant. These data are based on photographic data obtained using the Oschin Schmidt Telescope on Palomar Mountain and the UK Schmidt Telescope.. About 90 GSC stars appear in the co-added images. Tasks in the IRAF imcoords package were used to fit a 2-dimensional polynomial function to the pixel/equatorial coordinates. The r.m.s. of the residuals was less than $`0.5`$ arcseconds in both the $`x`$ and $`y`$ pixel dimensions for each co-added image.

### 2.4 Star-Galaxy Separation

Discrimination between point-like or extended objects is a serious issue for our dataset, given the fairly large pixel size ($`1.355\mathrm{}/`$pix). The method we used was based upon the “stellarity index” produced by the SExtractor neural-network classifier (Bertin & Arnouts, 1996). Each object detected in a co-added image was assigned a number between 0 and 1, which represents the confidence that an object is stellar. The stellarity index match for objects detected in multiple bands was quite good. For example, for objects detected in both the $`U`$ and $`R`$ band, the indices matched to within 0.1 for more than 75% of the objects, although the correlation degrades with fainter magnitudes. For multiply detected objects, the indices were weighted by the inverse of the squared magnitude uncertainties, then averaged over all the detections. We used an index $`0.6`$, because this included a large number of objects without noticeably increasing the width of the stellar locus in the color-color diagrams. In addition, all but one of the confirmed stars and QSOs from LPIF are selected with this cut.

### 2.5 The Object Catalog

The final imaging catalog contains 10647 objects detected in at least one band, 1516 detected in all 5 bands, and 1836, 4033, 5681, 8736, and 7841 objects detected in the $`U,B,V,R,\mathrm{and}I`$ bands respectively. There are 2147 objects classified as stellar, or about 20% of the total number of objects. Objects selected as QSO candidates will be presented in the next section, but the full catalog is likely to be useful for other studies, particularly because the survey area contains and surrounds the HDF. The full object catalog containing coordinates, magnitudes, uncertainties, and stellarity indices for all of the detected objects, may be obtained by contacting the authors.

## 3 QSO Candidate Selection and Verification

### 3.1 Selection of QSO Candidates

QSO candidates were selected based upon their locations in color space. In order to maintain a reasonably high efficiency of QSO selection, the candidates should clearly be located well outside of the stellar locus, and in regions of color space which QSOs are known to occupy at a relatively high density. The simplest selection criterion is to make one or two-dimensional cuts in two-color spaces. For example, QSOs with redshifts up to $`2.2`$ can be found with good efficiency by selecting objects with $`UB<0.3`$. At various redshifts, strong features in QSO spectra, such as the onset of the Ly $`\alpha `$ forest, move into and out of different photometric passbands. Thus QSO colors can be strongly dependent on redshift, and various color space cuts are most efficacious over select ranges of redshift. Automated but more complex outlier selection techniques have been tried in other studies (e.g. Newberg & Yanny, 1997; Warren et al., 1991), which are appropriate for large surveys for which it is impractical to check every candidate. Our sample is small enough to check each outlier individually, and our goal is not to identify a complete sample of QSOs, so color space cuts, based in part on results from past studies, are adequate for our purposes.

To select the search regions, two-color diagrams were plotted for all unsaturated objects classified as stellar, with magnitudes brighter than the 10% uncertainty level (Fig. 2). For the ($`UB)/(BV`$) diagram, we also plotted all of the available colors of QSOs in the catalog of Véron-Cetty & Véron (1996). Based on the location of the stellar locus and the known QSOs, cuts in ($`UB)/(BV`$) color space were made to select candidates from our imaging catalog. An historically successful method for selecting QSOs up to $`z2.2`$ is to select objects with $`UB0.3`$ – the so-called “UV-excess” method. This also appeared to be a good cutoff for our dataset, as seen in Fig. 2. In addition, a large fraction of the QSOs plotted from the Véron-Cetty & Véron catalog could have been selected with a $`BV0.35`$ cut, which includes only a small part of the stellar locus (mostly A-stars). These combined cuts in the ($`UB)/(BV`$) plane are the “UVX” selection method. UVX candidates with $`BV>0.6`$ are often identified as compact narrow emission line galaxies (NELGs) instead of QSOs. Few of our candidates exceed this limit, so we have not used it as a selection criterion. UVX candidates were divided into “bright” and “faint” sets, depending on whether the $`U,B,\mathrm{and}V`$ magnitudes were brighter or fainter than the 10% uncertainty levels. It is assumed that the “bright” candidates have a higher fraction of true QSOs, due to their better photometric accuracy. The UVX candidates that have not been spectroscopically confirmed are listed in Table 3.

Other cuts in color space, mainly aimed at locating higher-redshift QSOs, have been explored in other studies (e.g. Irwin et al., 1991; Hall et al., 1996). The number density of QSOs with $`z>3`$ to the limits of our survey is only about $`5`$ per square degree (e.g. Hall et al., 1996), but even one high-redshift QSO in the direction of the HDF would be valuable for absorption system studies. Hall et al., using a filter set similar to ours, successfully used cuts in color space to identify QSOs up to $`z=4.33`$. We have adopted several of their selection criteria, with slight modifications, in order to search for higher-redshift candidates in our catalog. These cuts are based on the ($`UV)/(VR`$), ($`BV)/(VR`$), and ($`BR)/(RI`$) two-color diagrams, and usually include objects which are red in the first color and blue in the second. In addition, we have added a cut in the ($`UB)/(BV`$) plane for objects red in $`UV`$ which are also blue in $`BV`$. The color selection criteria are shown in Fig. 2 and listed in Table 2. The cuts are set at reasonable values designed to run close to the stellar locus without introducing a large fraction of stars. We call these criteria collectively the “high-$`z`$” selection methods. As with the UVX selection, we have divided the high-$`z`$ sample into “bright” and “faint” sets, according to the 10% magnitude uncertainty levels. Because larger photometric errors in the faint set can cause a large number of non-QSOs to be selected as candidates, we kept only those faint high-$`z`$ candidates which passed as candidates using more than one two-color cut. As expected, the high-$`z`$ selection did not produce as many QSO candidates as the UVX selection. The high-$`z`$ candidates which have not been spectroscopically identified are listed in Table 4.

### 3.2 Spectroscopic Candidate Verification

The initial candidate verification was done as a poor-weather contingency program in April 1998 using the McDonald Observatory 2.7m telescope and Large Cass Spectrometer (LCS). All $`7`$ of the QSO candidates we observed in this run have also been observed by LPIF, and the $`4`$ QSOs and 1 NELG we confirmed in this run were also identified by them. A fifth candidate (J123800+6213) also turned out to be a QSO, but the S/N level in our spectrum was too low to identify it as such. For a second verification run in March 1999, we had the advantage of the published QSO list of LPIF, and so were able to avoid candidates which had already been observed. Our candidate list contained many UV-excess objects and high-$`z`$ candidates not in any of the lists of LPIF. We used the McDonald 2.7m and IGI spectrograph to observe $`11`$ candidates, which yielded 4 QSOs and 2 NELGs.

All of the spectra were reduced using standard techniques and tasks in IRAF. Bias level and flat field corrections were applied, then the spectra were optimally extracted (Horne, 1986), wavelength calibrated, and co-added. A sensitivity correction was applied to give an indication of the relative spectral shapes, but the spectra were not flux calibrated. The final reduced, co-added, calibrated QSO and NELG spectra are shown in Fig. 3.

In total, we observed $`18`$ QSO candidates, of which $`9`$ are QSOs, $`1`$ is an AGN, $`2`$ are narrow-emission-line galaxies, $`4`$ are stars, and $`2`$ remain unidentified. An additional 19 objects in our candidate list were observed by LPIF, $`9`$ of which are QSOs, and $`10`$ of which are are stars. One QSO from the LPIF list, J123622+6215, was not selected as a candidate by us, since it has a stellarity index of only $`0.37`$ caused by blending with a fainter object. The QSOs and NELGs confirmed in our program and those confirmed by LPIF in our survey area, are listed in Table 5. The identified stars are listed in Table 6. There are 16 more bright UV-excess candidates in our list which we have not observed spectroscopically, and which do not appear in the candidate list of LPIF. The unconfirmed UVX QSO candidates are listed in Table 3, and the unconfirmed high-$`z`$ candidates are listed in Table 4. The redshift distribution of the identified QSOs is shown in Fig. 4, and the coordinate positions are shown in Fig. 5.

While our goal is not a complete survey of QSOs in the area, it is useful to compare the density of QSOs near the HDF to other QSO surveys. Including the QSOs found by us and by LPIF in the $`0.56`$ sq. deg. area surrounding the HDF, there is a total of $`17`$, or roughly $`30`$ per square degree down to a limiting magnitude of $`B=21`$. This would be in good agreement with the densities found in several other faint UVX surveys (e.g. Koo & Kron, 1988; Zhan et al., 1989), which find roughly $`30`$ per sq. deg., except that we have a remaining 32 unidentified candidates with $`B21`$. Applying our UVX success rate (just over 50%, including the results of LPIF) to the remaining 32 UVX candidates with $`B21`$, we expect about another $`16`$ QSOs in our candidate list. Many of the remaining UVX candidates lie close to the $`UB`$ and $`BV`$ selection limits, and some lie in the region more heavily populated by NELGs, so it is doubtful that the efficiency for the remaining candidates will be as high as $`50\%`$. Assuming an efficiency only half this ($`25\%`$) we would reasonably expect about another $`8`$ QSOs, making the UVX QSO density about $`45`$ per sq. deg. to $`B21`$. While this is significantly higher than most previous studies, the density is in good agreement with Hall et al. (1996) who also noted that the density they found (in separate survey areas) was surprisingly high. The discrepancy may be due to differences in CCD vs. photographic detection techniques, some other selection difference, or real differences in the QSO number density, but the issue is unresolved. In any case, we conclude that our candidate selection is both relatively complete and efficient, and more than adequate for our purposes.

## 4 QSO Absorption Line System Spectroscopy

The principal goal of the QSO survey is to provide targets for higher-resolution follow-up spectroscopy in order to locate QSO absorption line systems near the HDF. After our first verification run, we identified 4 bright QSOs. Spectra suitable for absorption system searches were obtained for 3 of them: J123414+6226 ($`z=1.326`$), J123402+6227 ($`z=1.305`$), and J123637+6158 ($`z=2.518`$). One of these (J123414+6226) was bright enough to observe at very high resolution using the Keck HIRES spectrograph (Vogt et al., 1994). QSOs J123414+6226 and J123402+6227 are separated by only 112 arcsec. The observing logs for the higher resolution spectra are summarized in Table 7.

The three QSO spectra were searched for absorption lines using the methods described by Vanden Berk et al. (1999). Briefly, a continuum is fit to the spectrum, the flux spectrum and error arrays are normalized by the fit, then convolved with a normalized line-spread-function profile to produce an “equivalent-width” array. Absorption features having a significance level above 3$`\sigma `$ were flagged, then measured by fitting Gaussian profiles which yield observed line centers, equivalent widths, and their associated uncertainties. The lines were identified with ionic transitions and redshifts based upon the line positions, strengths, and presence of corroborating lines. In the final line list, only lines with a significance level greater then $`4.5\sigma `$ were kept, unless the line could be identified with a transition occurring in a system identified with more significant lines. The absorption lines are listed in Table 8 and marked on the QSO spectra plots in Figs. 68.

Not counting Ly $`\alpha `$ forest lines, a Milky Way ISM system, and a BAL system, we have identified 5 heavy-element absorption line systems in the three QSO spectra – two each in J123414+6226 and J123637+6158, and one in J123402+6227. The systems in the Keck spectrum of J123414+6226 are at $`z=0.28159`$ and $`z=0.55649`$, and both are Mg ii doublet systems. Both systems would be classified as “weak” since their equivalent widths are less than $`0.3`$Å (Churchill et al., 1999). The system in the ARC/MDM spectrum of J123402+6227 is at a redshift of $`z=0.5621`$. The line widths are somewhat uncertain since they lie on the blueward edge of the QSO C iii\] $`\lambda 1909`$ emission line, but the line centers and relative equivalent widths are consistent with a Mg ii doublet. There is another possible Mg ii doublet in this spectrum at $`z=0.5478`$, but we list it only as a candidate, since the doublet ratios are inconsistent, and one line falls below our $`4.5\sigma `$ completeness limit. No significant lines were detected in the red spectrum of the QSO, but the $`4.5\sigma `$ lower equivalent width limit of this spectrum, $`1.3`$Å, is relatively insensitive. The two systems in the MDM spectrum of J123637+6158 are at $`z=0.7913`$ and $`z=1.8895`$, and are identified by a Mg ii and C iv doublet respectively. The spectrum also shows a rich Ly $`\alpha `$ forest ranging from $`2.15<z<2.52`$, and a broad absorption line system near $`z=2.38`$, seen in both Ly $`\alpha `$ and C iv absorption. Since the BAL phenomena is likely to be unrelated to intervening galaxies (Turnshek, 1984), we have not included it in the analysis of § 5.

## 5 Comparison With the HDF Galaxy Redshift Distribution

There are so far about $`300`$ published galaxy redshifts towards the HDF, which come mainly from the surveys of Cohen et al. (1996a); Steidel et al. (1996); Lowenthal et al. (1997); Guzmán et al. (1997); Phillips et al. (1997), and Hogg et al. (1998). The galaxy redshifts measured towards the HDF lie within two redshift ranges, $`0z1.3`$ and $`2.9z3.6`$. There are few measured redshifts between these ranges, due to the lack of prominent spectral features observable at optical wavelengths. QSOs are observable over this entire redshift range, but our highest confirmed QSO has a redshift of $`z=2.58`$. Absorption systems are detectable at wavelengths above the atmospheric cutoff at $`z0.15`$ for Mg ii doublets. Thus the distributions of galaxies, QSOs, and absorbers can be compared within overlapping redshift ranges.

The redshift distribution of the galaxies towards the HDF up to $`z=2`$ is shown in Fig. 9, and the redshifts of the individual QSOs and absorbers are superimposed. The galaxy distribution is characterized by sharp peaks which contain most of the galaxies. We have defined redshift peaks in a manner similar to Cohen et al. (1996b). The statistical significance parameter, $`X_{max}`$, is defined as the maximum absolute number of standard deviations the number count in a peak lies from the mean count, found after varying the count histogram bin sizes and locations (Cohen et al., 1996b). A group of galaxies is considered a peak if the group contains at least 5 galaxies, and has an $`X_{max}5`$. At least 8 distinct peaks are identified this way at redshifts 0.087, 0.319, 0.455, 0.475, 0.515, 0.559, 0.847, and 0.962, which are marked by dots on Fig. 9. This list includes 5 of the 6 peaks identified by Cohen et al. (1996b), excluding the peak at 0.679 which we find has 7 members but an $`X_{max}`$ of only $`3.9`$. Many less significant peaks may also be present. The velocity widths of the peaks are typically $`\sigma _v300`$km/s. If these structures are the precursors to walls seen in the local universe, as suggested by Cohen et al. (1996b), some of the QSOs and absorbers in the surrounding volume are likely to be contained within these structures. Of the 19 QSOs and 1 AGN, few appear to be coincident with any of the strong galaxy peaks, but several have redshifts close to possible smaller galaxy groups (Fig. 9). The measured redshifts of QSOs can vary by over 1000km/s depending on what emission lines are used and how they are measured (e.g. Tytler & Fan, 1992). For this reason, QSOs are not ideal for tracing structure on scales less than a few hundred km/s, and any matches between galaxy peak and QSO redshifts would be uncertain.

Redshifts for absorption line systems, on the other hand, can be measured very accurately, even with relatively low-resolution absorption spectra. Of the four absorbers which lie in the well-sampled galaxy redshift range ($`z1.3`$), two have redshifts coinciding with the second most populated peak in the galaxy distribution at $`z0.559`$, one system at $`z=0.7913`$ lies near a possible weaker galaxy group, and one at $`z=0.2816`$ does not appear to lie near any galaxy feature. The eight galaxy peaks occupy a total velocity path of about $`4800`$km/s between $`0<z1.3`$ (assuming $`600`$km/s per peak) or about $`2\%`$ of the total velocity path, so the random binomial probability of finding two or more out of 4 absorption systems in any of the peaks is about $`0.2\%`$. Thus it is reasonable to assume that at least some of the absorption line systems are physically related to the peaks in the galaxy distribution.

If the absorbers at $`z=0.559`$ are parts of the same structure that contains the galaxies, then the galaxy structure extends at least as far as the HDF and absorber transverse separations. For an $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=1`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$ ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$) universe, the comoving transverse separations of the QSO absorbers and HDF are $`7.9`$ ($`9.6`$) and $`8.5`$ ($`10.4`$) $`h^1`$Mpc. The inclination angle of a hypothesized sheet containing the galaxies and absorbers to the line of sight would likely be less than $`30`$ degrees, given that each absorber is about one velocity dispersion width ($`460`$km/s) from the mean redshift of the galaxy peak, and on opposite sides. Even for fairly large inclination angles, we would expect absorption members of the sheet to lie close to the redshift of the galaxy peak at this transverse separation, since the velocity width of the peak translated into a comoving width is $`3.7`$ ($`5.3`$) $`h^1`$Mpc at $`z=0.559`$. At this preliminary stage, the combined galaxy and absorption data are consistent with the suggestion by Cohen et al. (1996a, b) that this structure and those containing other galaxy peaks are parts of the precursors to present-day superclusters or walls. The lower limit on the transverse size of the structure at $`z=0.559`$ is about twice the radial extent, but a denser and wider absorption study is needed to definitively test for a filamentary or sheet-like geometry.

There is a strong correlation between the presence of a Mg ii absorption line system and a luminous galaxy in close physical proximity (Bergeron & Boisse, 1991; Steidel et al., 1994; Guillemin & Bergeron, 1997). It is therefore probably not surprising to find a number of these systems near concentrations of luminous galaxies in redshift space. Our preliminary result from the three QSO sightlines demonstrates the utility of using heavy-element QSO absorption line systems as complementary probes of large-scale structure at high redshift. Absorption spectroscopy of the remaining QSOs in our sample, and those of the slightly wider survey of LPIF, would likely yield an order of magnitude more absorption line systems towards the HDF. Such a sample could show, for example, whether the absorbers and galaxies occupy the redshift peaks at the same frequency, how far the galaxy structures extend in three dimensions, and how the absorbers and galaxies are biased relative to one another.

## 6 Summary

We have begun a survey to identify QSOs and absorption line systems in a $`45\times 45`$ square arcmin area surrounding the Hubble Deep Field. So far $`19`$ QSOs have been identified within our survey area to a limiting magnitude of $`B21`$, and over 30 UVX and high-redshift QSO candidates remain. We have obtained absorption line spectra for three of the brighter QSOs in the field, which have revealed at least 5 heavy-element absorption line systems. Of the four systems that overlap the redshift range explored in deep galaxy redshift surveys of the HDF, two lie at or very near one of the strongest redshift peaks in the galaxy distribution. If the absorbers and galaxies in the peak are part of the same structure, it extends at least $`7h^1`$Mpc ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=1`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$) in the transverse direction at a redshift of $`z0.56`$. This supports earlier evidence from the galaxies alone that the peaks in the galaxy distribution are parts of larger structures, which may be the precursors to present-day superclusters or walls.

We are grateful to Inger Jørgensen, Marcel Bergmann, and Gary Hill for assistance in developing the image reduction routines. D.E.V.B. was supported in part by the Harlan J. Smith Fellowship at the University of Texas McDonald Observatory.


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# Random magnetic field and quasi-particle transports in the mixed state of high 𝑇_𝑐 cuprates

## Abstract

By a singular gauge transformation, the quasi-particle transport in the mixed state of high $`T_c`$ cuprates is mapped into charge-neutral composite Dirac fermion moving in short-range correlated random scalar and long-range  correlated vector potential. A fully quantum mechanical approach to longitudinal and transverse thermal conductivities is presented. The semi-classical Volovik effect is presented in a quantum mechanical way. The quasi-particle scattering from the random magnetic field which was completely missed in all the previous semi-classical approaches is the dominant scattering mechanism at sufficient high magnetic field. The implications for experiments are discussed.

The general problem of quasi-particle transport in the mixed state of high $`T_c`$ cuprates is important, because simultaneous measurements of thermal conductivities $`\kappa _{xx}`$ and $`\kappa _{xy}`$ provide a lot of information on the new physics pertinent to $`d`$ wave superconductors. On the experimental side, Krishana et al observed that in superconducting BSCCO and YBCO, at temperature $`T>5K`$, the longitudinal thermal conductivity $`\kappa _{xx}(H)`$ initially decreases with applied magnetic field $`H`$, then reaches a plateau . They also measured  thermal Hall conductivity $`\kappa _{xy}`$ at $`T>10K`$ and extracted the thermal Hall angle $`\mathrm{tan}\theta =\frac{\kappa _{xy}}{\kappa _{xx}}`$. On the theoretical side, employing semi-classical approximation, Volovik pointed out that the circulating supercurrents around vortices induce Doppler energy shift to the quasi-particle spectrum, which leads to a finite density of states at the nodes . This effect ( Volovik effect) has been employed to explain the above experimental observations of $`\kappa _{xx}`$ by several authors . However, semi-classical method can not be used to calculate $`\kappa _{xy}`$. A fully quantum mechanical approach is needed to get any information on $`\kappa _{xy}`$.

Starting from BCS Hamiltonian, Wang and MacDonald performed a first numerical calculation on quasi-particle spectrum in vortex lattice state . By phenomenological scaling argument, Simon and Lee (SL) proposed the approximate scaling forms for $`\kappa _{xx}`$ and $`\kappa _{xy}`$ for dirty $`d`$ wave superconductors in the mixed state. Anderson  employed a singular gauge transformation to study quasi-particle dynamics in the mixed state. Franz and Tesanovic (FT) employed a different singular gauge transformation to map the quasi-particle in a square vortex lattice state to Dirac fermion moving in an effective periodic scalar and vector potential with zero average and studied the quasi-particle spectrum . Using FT transformation, Marinelli et al studied the spectrum in various kinds of vortex lattice states in great detail .

In this paper, by considering carefully the gauge invariance overlooked by previous authors , we extend FT singular gauge transformation to include the curvature term which is important to $`\kappa _{xy}`$. After clarifying some important subtle points of the singular gauge transformation, we prove exactly that there is no Landau level quantitation, then apply it to disordered vortex state with logarithmic interaction between vortices. We find that quasi-particle moving in the disordered vortex state of high $`T_c`$ cuprates can be mapped into charge-neutral composite Dirac fermion moving in short-range correlated random scalar potential and long-range correlated vector potential with zero average. The quasi-particle scattering from the long-range correlated internal gauge field dominates over those from the well-known Volovik effect and the non-magnetic scattering at sufficient high magnetic field $`HH^{}H_{c2}(\frac{T}{T_c})^2`$. $`\kappa _{xx}`$ satisfies scaling Eq.24, at $`H>H^{}`$, it approaches different pinning strength dependent plateaus due to the vertex correction shown in Fig.1. However, $`\kappa _{xy}`$ satisfies scaling Eq.25, at $`H>H^{}`$, it increases as $`\sqrt{H}`$.

We start from the $`d`$ wave BCS Hamiltonian in the presence of external magnetic field:

$$H=𝑑xd^{}(x)\left(\begin{array}{cc}h+V(x)& \widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}\\ \widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}^{}& h^{}V(x)\end{array}\right)d(x)$$
(1)
with $`d_{}(x)=c_{}(x),d_{}(x)=c_{}^{}(x)`$, $`V(x)`$ is random chemical potential due to non-magnetic impurities.

The non-magnetic impurity scattering part can be written as:

$$H_{imp}=V(x)d_\alpha ^{}(x)\tau _{\alpha \beta }^3d_\alpha (x)$$
(2)
We assume that $`V(x)`$ satisfies Gaussian distribution with zero mean and variances $`\mathrm{\Delta }_A`$

$$<V(x)>=0,<V(x)V(x^{})>=\mathrm{\Delta }_A\delta ^2(xx^{})$$
(3)
The gauge invariance dictates:

$`h`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2m}}(\stackrel{}{p}{\displaystyle \frac{e}{c}}\stackrel{}{A})^2ϵ_F`$ (4)
$`\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4p_F^2}}[\{p_x{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_x\varphi ,p_y{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_y\varphi \}\mathrm{\Delta }(\stackrel{}{r})`$ (5)
$`+`$ $`(p_x{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_x\varphi )\mathrm{\Delta }(\stackrel{}{r})(p_y+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_y\varphi )`$ (6)
$`+`$ $`(p_y{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_y\varphi )\mathrm{\Delta }(\stackrel{}{r})(p_x+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_x\varphi )`$ (7)
$`+`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\stackrel{}{r})\{p_x+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_x\varphi ,p_y+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_y\varphi \}]`$ (8)
where $`\varphi `$ is the phase of $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\stackrel{}{r})`$ .

The gauge invariance in $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ has not been taken into account in Refs.. Although its correct treatment does not affect the linearized Hamiltonian ( see Eq.11 ), it is crucial to the curvature term ( see Eq.12 ) which is important to $`\kappa _{xy}`$. The similar gauge invariance was considered in Eq.2.12 of Ref..

Following FT , we introduce composite fermion   $`d_c`$ by performing a singular unitary transformation $`d=Ud_c`$:

$$H_s=U^1HU,U=\left(\begin{array}{cc}e^{i\varphi _A(\stackrel{}{r})}& 0\\ 0& e^{i\varphi _B(\stackrel{}{r})}\end{array}\right)$$
(9)
where $`\varphi _A`$ is the phase from the vortices in sublattice $`A`$ and $`\varphi _B`$ is the phase from the vortices in sublattice $`B`$.

In this letter, we assume the thermal currents are sufficiently weak that the vortices remain pinned by non-magnetic impurities. Therefore, the transport properties of $`d`$ is exactly the same as the composite fermions $`d_c`$. It is easy to check that $`U`$ commutes with $`\tau ^3`$, therefore the transformation leaves Eq.2 $`H_{imp}`$ invariant.

Expanding $`H_s`$ around the node 1 where $`\stackrel{}{p}=(p_F,0)`$, we obtain $`H_s=H_l+H_c`$ where the linearized Hamiltonian $`H_l`$ is given by:

$`H_l`$ $`=`$ $`v_f(p_x+a_x)\tau ^3+v_2(p_y+a_y)\tau ^1+v_fv_x(\stackrel{}{r})`$ (10)
$`+`$ $`V(x)\tau ^3+(12,xy)`$ (11)
where $`\stackrel{}{v}_s=\frac{1}{2}(\stackrel{}{v}_s^A+\stackrel{}{v}_s^B)=\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}\varphi \frac{e}{c}\stackrel{}{A}`$ is the total superfluid momentum and $`a_\alpha =\frac{1}{2}(v_\alpha ^Av_\alpha ^B)=\frac{1}{2}(\varphi _A\varphi _B)`$ is the internal gauge field. Anderson’s gauge choice is $`\varphi _A=\varphi ,\varphi _B=0`$ or vice versa .

We get the corresponding expression at node $`\overline{1}`$ and $`\overline{2}`$ by changing $`v_fv_f,v_2v_2`$ in the above Eq.

The curvature term $`H_c`$ can be written as:

$$H_c=\frac{1}{m}[\{\mathrm{\Pi }_\alpha ,v_\alpha \}+\frac{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Pi }}^2+\stackrel{}{v}^2}{2}\tau ^3+\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_0}{2ϵ_F}\{\mathrm{\Pi }_x,\mathrm{\Pi }_y\}\tau ^1]$$
(12)
Where $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Pi }}=\stackrel{}{p}+\stackrel{}{a}`$ is the covariant derivative. $`H_c`$ takes the same  form for all the four nodes.

It is easy to see that $`v_\alpha (\stackrel{}{r})`$ acts as a scalar scattering potential, it respects time-reversal (T) symmetry, but breaks Particle-Hole (PH) symmetry . There are two very different kinds of internal gauge fields in $`H_l`$: $`V(x)`$ is due to non-magnetic impurity scattering at zero field, $`a_\alpha `$ is completely due to Aharonov and Bohm (AB) phase scattering  from vortices generated by external magnetic field. They both respect P-H symmetry. In general, $`V(x)`$ breaks T symmetry, but T symmetry is restored in the unitary limit . For general flux quantum $`\alpha `$, $`a_\alpha `$ breaks T symmetry, but T symmetry is restored at $`\alpha =1/2`$  because $`\alpha =1/2`$ flux quantum is equivalent to $`\alpha =1/2`$ one due to the periodicity under $`\alpha \alpha +1`$. This is also the underlying physical reason why we are able to choose the two sublattices $`A`$ and $`B`$ freely without changing any physics. Due to this exact T symmetry, there is no Landau level quantization as claimed in .

In $`H_c`$, the only term which breaks both P-H and T symmetry  is $`\psi ^{}\{p_\alpha ,v_\alpha \}\psi =iv_\alpha (_\alpha \psi ^{}\psi \psi ^{}_\alpha \psi )`$. This term will lead to thermal Hall conductivity to be discussed in the following .

From Eq.11, it is easy to identify the conserved charge currents at node 1:

$$j_{1x}=\psi _1^{}(x)v_F\tau ^3\psi _1(x),j_{1y}=\psi _1^{}(x)v_2\tau ^1\psi _1(x)$$
(13)
with the currents at node 2 differing from the above expressions by $`(12,xy)`$. It is known that the charge conductivity of $`d_c`$ corresponds to the spin conductivity of $`c`$ electrons Because the spin $`\sigma _s`$ and thermal conductivities are related by Wiedemann-Franz law . For simplicity, in the following, we only give specific expressions for the spin conductivity which can be evaluated by Kubo formula.

The Hamiltonian $`H_l+H_c`$ enjoys gauge symmetry $`U_u(1)\times U_s(1)`$, the first being uniform (or external ) and the second being staggered ( or internal ) gauge symmetry. Although the composite fermion $`d_\alpha `$ is charge neutral to the external magnetic field, it carries charge $`1`$ to the internal gauge field $`a_\alpha `$.

We assume a randomly pinned vortex array with logarithmic interaction between vortices. In the hydrodynamic limit, after averaging over all the possible positions of the vortices $`R_i`$, we find:

$`<v_\alpha >=<a_\alpha >=0,<v_\alpha (\stackrel{}{k})a_\beta (\stackrel{}{k}^{})>=0`$ (14)
$`<v_\alpha (\stackrel{}{k})v_\beta (\stackrel{}{k})>=\pi ^2(\delta _{\alpha \beta }{\displaystyle \frac{k_\alpha k_\beta }{k^2}}){\displaystyle \frac{n_v}{k^2+n_v}}`$ (15)
$`<a_\alpha (\stackrel{}{k})a_\beta (\stackrel{}{k})>=\pi ^2(\delta _{\alpha \beta }{\displaystyle \frac{k_\alpha k_\beta }{k^2}}){\displaystyle \frac{n_v}{k^2}}`$ (16)
Where the vortex density is $`n_v=\frac{N}{V}=\frac{H}{H_{c2}}\frac{1}{\xi ^2}`$.

The first line in Eq.16 is exact. The $`vv`$ and $`aa`$ correlators are the most general forms consistent with the incompressibility of the vortex system . The pinning strength will only enter as prefactors in front of $`n_v`$. For notational simplicity, we suppress these prefactors.

Because $`v`$ and $`a`$ are decoupled at quadratic order (see Eq.9), the long-range logarithmic interaction between vortices suppresses the fluctuation of superfluid velocity, but does not affect the fluctuation of the internal gauge field. Therefore the scalar field acquires a ” mass ” determined by the vortex density, but the gauge field remains ” massless ”. The gauge field is a pure quantum mechanical effect, it was completely missed in all the previous semi-classical approaches . Here we explicitly demonstrate that being gapless, its fluctuation even dominates  over the well-known Volovik effect in the low energy limit. It also dominates over that from the non-magnetic scattering at sufficiently high field and low energy limit.

In fact, in the weakly type II limit $`\xi <\lambda <d_v`$, the superfluid velocity vanishes in the interior of superconductor, the long-range correlated gauge potential in Eq.16 becomes the only scattering mechanism .

From the Eq.16, it is easy to realize that the internode scattering $`k_F^2`$ is weaker than the intra-node scattering $`p_0^2`$ by a factor $`\alpha ^1=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_0}{ϵ_F}1`$. In the following we neglect the internode scattering.

Up to the order of Gaussian cumulants, the scalar potential and vector potential are uncorrelated. However, they are correlated by Non-Gaussian cumulants. The lowest order non-Gaussian cumulants are the skewness:

$`<v_\alpha (\stackrel{}{r}_1)v_\beta (\stackrel{}{r}_2)a_\gamma (\stackrel{}{r}_3)>=<a_\alpha (\stackrel{}{r}_1)a_\beta (\stackrel{}{r}_2)a_\gamma (\stackrel{}{r}_3)>=0`$ (17)
$`<v_\alpha (\stackrel{}{k}_1)v_\beta (\stackrel{}{k}_2)v_\gamma (\stackrel{}{k}_3)>=\pi ^3n_v\delta (\stackrel{}{k}_1+\stackrel{}{k}_2+\stackrel{}{k}_3)`$ (18)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{iϵ_{\alpha \delta }k_{1\delta }(\stackrel{}{k}_2\stackrel{}{k}_3\delta _{\beta \gamma }k_{2\gamma }k_{3\beta })}{(k_1^2+n_v)(k_2^2+n_v)(k_3^2+n_v)}}`$ (19)
$`<v_\alpha (\stackrel{}{k}_1)a_\beta (\stackrel{}{k}_2)a_\gamma (\stackrel{}{k}_3)>=\pi ^3n_v\delta (\stackrel{}{k}_1+\stackrel{}{k}_2+\stackrel{}{k}_3)`$ (20)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{iϵ_{\alpha \delta }k_{1\delta }(\stackrel{}{k}_2\stackrel{}{k}_3\delta _{\beta \gamma }k_{2\gamma }k_{3\beta })}{(k_1^2+n_v)k_2^2k_3^2}}`$ (21)
In fact, because any distribution function satisfies $`P[a_\alpha (x)]=P[a_\alpha (x)]`$, any correlators involving odd number of $`a_\alpha `$ vanish. After coarse graining, the exact T symmetry of $`H_l`$ is approximated by the average one. This approximation will lead to correct behaviors of self-averaging physical quantities. But it does not apply to non-self-averaging quantity such as Hall conductance fluctuation.

The discussion on $`\kappa _{xx}`$:  The scalar potential capture the essential physics of Volovik effect: the quasi-particles energies are shifted by superfluid flow. Following the RG analysis in Ref., it can be shown that the random scalar potential is marginally relevant, therefore generates finite density of states at zero energy. Because $`k_Fl_{tr}k_Fd_vk_F\xi 5`$, the SCBA in standard impurity scattering process can be applied to calculate the low energy scattering rate. In $`k,\omega 0`$ limit, it leads to

$$1=v_F^2\pi ^2n_v\frac{d^2p}{(2\pi )^2}\frac{p_y^2}{p^2(p^2+n_v)}\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_0^2+E_p^2}$$
(22)
where $`E_k^2=(v_fk_1)^2+(v_2k_2)^2`$, the retarded self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(k,\omega )=\mathrm{\Sigma }(\stackrel{}{k},i\omega \omega +i\delta )`$, the zero energy scattering rate is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0=Im\mathrm{\Sigma }^R(0,0)`$.

The above equation leads to the quasi-particle lifetime:

$$1/\tau _l\mathrm{\Gamma }_0\mathrm{\Delta }_0\sqrt{\frac{H}{H_{c2}}}$$
(23)
Now we look at the vertex correction to $`\kappa _{xx}`$ due to the ladder diagram shown in Fig.1 at $`T=0`$.

Fig 1: Vertex correction to longitudinal conductivity

Fig.1a is just the bubble diagram. It leads to the well known bubble conductivity : $`\sigma _{xx}^0=\frac{s^2}{\pi ^2}\frac{v_f^2+v_2^2}{v_fv_2}`$.

By checking the integral equation satisfied by the vertex function $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(p,i\omega ,i\omega +i\mathrm{\Omega })=\tau ^3(1+\mathrm{\Lambda }(p,i\omega ,i\omega +i\mathrm{\Omega }))`$ depicted in Fig.1c, we find $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is at the order of 1 independent of $`n_v`$, therefore $`\sigma _{xx}`$ receives vertex correction of order 1 independent of $`n_v`$ . This vertex correction was completely missed in the semiclassical treatments .

The random gauge field gives additional scattering mechanism. it has scaling dimension 2, therefore strongly relevant  and dominates over Volovik effect at low energy limit. Similar SCBA to Eq.22 leads to logarithmic divergent  quasi-particle scattering rate $`1/\tau _l`$ which is not gauge-invariant anyway. But the vertex correction similar to Fig.1 removes the logarithmic divergence and leads to the finite gauge-invariant transport time $`\tau _{tr}\sqrt{\frac{H_{c2}}{H}}\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }_0}`$ .

The vertex correction to the bubble conductivity due to the non-magnetic impurity scattering Eq.3 among the four nodes was calculated in Ref., it was found to be negligible. It is obvious that the two vertex corrections are different due to different scattering mechanisms, therefore the two conductivity values are different, although the bubble results are the same.

At finite temperature, the $`T`$ dependence comes solely from the Fermi function, $`\sigma _{xx}`$ should satisfy the following scaling ( $`T_c\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ ):

$$\sigma _{xx}(H,T)=F_1(aT\tau _{tr})=F_1(a\frac{T}{T_c}\sqrt{\frac{H_{c2}}{H}})$$
(24)
This scaling is consistent with Simon and Lee  using phenomenological scaling argument. Our derivation bring out explicitly the underlying physical process: the quasiparticle scattering due to the long-range correlated random gauge potential. Pushing further, we conclude that in the high field limit $`Ha^2H_{c2}(\frac{T}{T_c})^2`$, $`\sigma _{xx}`$ should approach the $`T=0`$ value $`F_1(0)=\sigma _{xx}(0)`$ at the order of 1. This value depends on not only the anisotropy parameter $`\alpha =v_f/v_2`$, but also the pinning strength appearing in Eq.16. This dependence could explain the different plateau values observed in the experiments .

Unfortunately, the value $`\sigma _{xx}(0)`$ is hard to be sorted out experimently due to the large background contributions from phonons .

The discussion on $`\kappa _{xy}`$:  We start with $`H_l`$. In order to get a non-vanishing $`\kappa _{xy}`$, we must identify terms which break both T and P-H symmetry. As shown previously, $`H_l`$ respects exact T symmetry, therefore $`<\sigma _{xy}>=0`$ to the linear order. We have to go to the curvature term Eq.12 to see its contribution to $`<\sigma _{xy}>`$.

The first contribution comes from the skewness between Volovik term and the $`\{p_\alpha ,v_\alpha \}`$ term $`<v_\alpha (\stackrel{}{r}_1)v_\beta (\stackrel{}{r}_2)v_\gamma (\stackrel{}{r}_3)>`$ in Eq.21 which breaks both T and P-H symmetry.

Just like in $`\kappa _{xx}`$, the skewness between scalar and random gauge field $`<v_\alpha (\stackrel{}{r}_1)a_\beta (\stackrel{}{r}_2)a_\gamma (\stackrel{}{r}_3)>`$ in Eq.21 gives additional scattering mechanism. It even dominates over the pure scalar skewness at low energy limit.

Due to the antisymmetric tensor $`ϵ_{\alpha \delta }`$, we find $`\sigma _{2xy}=\sigma _{1yx}=\sigma _{1xy}`$. Because both skewnesses are even under $`v_fv_f,v_2v_2`$, it is easy to find that $`\sigma _{1xy}=\sigma _{\overline{1}xy}`$, therefore $`\sigma _{xy}=\sigma _{1xy}+\sigma _{2xy}+\sigma _{\overline{1}xy}+\sigma _{\overline{2}xy}=4\sigma _{1xy}`$.

Because the $`\{p_\alpha ,v_\alpha \}`$ term contains one more derivative, simple power counting leads to

$$<\sigma _{xy}(H,T)>=\frac{T_c}{ϵ_F}\sqrt{\frac{H}{H_{c2}}}F_2(b\frac{T}{T_c}\sqrt{\frac{H_{c2}}{H}})$$
(25)
This scaling is consistent with Simon and Lee  by phenomenological scaling argument. Our derivation bring out explicitly the leading contributions from the $`\{p_\alpha ,v_\alpha \}`$ term in the curvature term and also its small numerical factor $`\frac{T_c}{ϵ_F}`$. Pushing further, we conclude that in high field limit $`Hb^2H_{c2}(\frac{T}{T_c})^2`$, $`\sigma _{xy}`$ should increase with $`H`$ as $`\frac{T_c}{ϵ_F}\sqrt{\frac{H}{H_{c2}}}F_2(0)`$. Taking $`\alpha 10,H10T,H_{c2}150T`$, we find the prefactor is about $`1/40`$, so $`\kappa _{xy}`$ is smaller than $`\kappa _{xx}`$ by a factor of $`1/40`$. The smallness of $`\kappa _{xy}`$ make it difficult to measure experimentally.

The most recent data at $`10K<T<30K`$ for $`\kappa _{xy}/T^2`$  was shown to satisfy quite well the scaling $`\kappa _{xy}/T^2=F(b\sqrt{H}/T)`$ which follows from Eq.25, however, it continues to decrease up to $`H=14T`$ instead of increasing linearly with $`\sqrt{H}/T`$ as follows from Eq.25. The discrepancy may be due to the inelastic scattering at $`T>10K`$ not considered in this paper. For technical reason, so far the data is not available at $`T<10K`$.

In conclusion, we point out that the dominant scattering mechanism at sufficient high magnetic field is due to the long-range correlated random gauge potential instead of the well-known Volovik effect.

This work was supported by NSF Grant No. DMR-97-07701 and university of Houston. I am deeply indebted to B. I. Halperin, A. J. Millis, N. Read and Z. Tesanovic for very valuable discussions. I thank D. Arovas, A. V. Balatsky, A. W. W. Ludwig, A. D. Stone and A. M. Tsvelik for patiently explaining their work to him. I also thank C. Chamon, M. Franz, T. Senthil and C. S. Ting for helpful discussions.


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# Poincaré Polynomials of Hyperquot Schemes

## 1. Introduction

In this paper, we find generating functions for the Poincaré polynomials of hyperquot schemes for all partial flag varieties. These generating functions give the Betti numbers of hyperquot schemes, and thus give dimension information for the cohomology ring of every hyperquot scheme.

Let $`𝐅(n;𝐬)`$ denote the partial flag variety corresponding to flags of the form:

$$V_1V_2\mathrm{}V_lV=^n$$

with dim $`V_i=s_i`$. The space $`\mathrm{Mor}_𝐝(𝐏^1,𝐅(n;𝐬))`$ of morphisms from $`𝐏^1`$ to $`𝐅(n;𝐬)`$ of multidegree $`𝐝=(d_1,\mathrm{},d_l)`$ can be viewed as the space of successive quotients of $`V_{𝐏^1}`$ of vector bundles of rank $`r_i`$ and degree $`d_i`$, where $`r_i:=ns_i`$ and $`V_{𝐏^1}:=V𝒪_{𝐏^1}`$ is a trivial rank $`n`$ vector bundle over $`𝐏^1`$. Its compactification, the hyperquot scheme which we denote $`𝒬_𝐝=𝒬_𝐝(𝐅(n;𝐬))`$, parametrizes flat families of successive quotient sheaves of $`V_{𝐏^1}`$ of rank $`r_i`$ and degree $`d_i`$. It is a generalization of Grothendieck’s Quot scheme \[G\].

There has been much interest in compactifications of moduli spaces of maps, for example the stable maps of Kontsevich. Hyperquot schemes are another natural such compactification. Indeed, most of what is known so far about the quantum cohomology of Grassmanians and flag varieties has been obtained by using Quot scheme compactifications. They have been used by Bertram to study Gromov-Witten invariants and a quantum Schubert calculus \[B1\] \[B2\] for Grassmannians, and by Ciocan-Fontanine and Kim to study Gromov-Witten invariants and the quantum cohomology ring of flag varieties and partial flag varieties \[K\] \[C-F1\] \[C-F2\] \[FGP\], see also \[C1\] \[C2\].

The paper is organized in the following way:

In section 2, we give some properties of hyperquot schemes, including a description of the Zariski tangent space to $`𝒬_𝐝`$ at a point.

In section 3, we consider a torus action on the hyperquot scheme. By the theorems of Bialynicki-Birula, the fixed points of this action give a cell decomposition of $`𝒬_𝐝`$ \[BB1\]\[BB2\]. The fixed point data is organized to give a generating function for the topological Euler characteristic of $`𝒬_𝐝`$.

In section 4, we use the Zariski tangent space to $`𝒬_𝐝`$ at a point as described in section 2 to compute tangent weights at the fixed points. This gives an implicit formula for the Betti numbers of $`𝒬_𝐝`$. The torus action and techniques are similar to those used by Strømme in the case $`l=1`$, where $`𝐅(n:s)`$ is the Grassmannian $`𝐆_s(n)`$ and $`𝒬_𝐝`$ is the ordinary Quot scheme \[S\].

In section 5, we reorganize the implicit formula for the Betti numbers in a way that reduces the problem to a purely combinatorial one. In particular, we collect the information into the form of a generating function.

Let $`𝒫(𝐗)=_Mb_{2M}(𝐗)z^M`$ denote the Poincaré polynomial of a space $`𝐗`$. It is classically known that $`𝒫(𝐅(n;𝐬))`$ is equal to the following generating function for the Betti numbers of the partial flag variety:

$$𝒫(𝐅(n;𝐬))=\underset{M}{}b_{2M}(𝐅)z^M=\frac{_{i=1}^n(1z^i)}{_{j=1}^{l+1}_{i=1}^{s_js_{j1}}(1z^i)}$$

with $`s_{l+1}:=n`$ and $`s_0:=0`$.

Defining $`f_k^{i,j}:=1t_i\mathrm{}t_jz^k`$, the main result is:

###### Theorem 1.

$`{\displaystyle \underset{d_1,\mathrm{},d_l}{}}𝒫(𝒬_𝐝(𝐅(n;𝐬)))t_1^{d_1}\mathrm{}t_l^{d_l}=`$
$`𝒫(𝐅(n;𝐬)){\displaystyle \underset{1ijl}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{s_{i1}<ks_i}{}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{s_jk}^{i,j}}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{s_{j+1}k+1}^{i,j}}}\right)`$
In section 6, we discuss the special cases of the ordinary Quot scheme and of the hyperquot scheme for complete flags, and provide some specific examples.

## 2. Hyperquot Schemes

We fix some notation. Let $`V=^n`$ be a complex n-dimensional vector space. Let $`𝐅:=𝐅(n;𝐬)`$ denote the partial flag variety corresponding to flags of the form:

$$V_1V_2\mathrm{}V_lV$$

where $`V_i`$ is a complex subspace of dimension $`s_i`$. We have $`s_0:=0<s_1<\mathrm{}<s_l<s_{l+1}:=n`$. Define $`r_i:=ns_i`$. As a special case, let $`𝐅(n)=𝐅(n;1,2,\mathrm{},n1)`$ denote the complete flag variety, with $`𝒬_𝐝(𝐅(n))`$ the corresponding hyperquot scheme for complete flags. Also note that the Grassmannian parametrizing $`r`$-dimensional quotients of $`V`$, is also a special case, $`𝐆^r(n)=𝐅(n;nr)`$.

For any space $`T`$, let $`V_T`$ denote the trivial rank $`n`$ vector bundle on $`T`$, i.e. $`V_T:=V𝒪_T`$ .

Consider a functor $`_𝐝`$ from the category of schemes to the category of sets. For a scheme $`T`$, $`_𝐝(T)`$ is defined to be the set of flagged quotient sheaves

$$V_{𝐏^1\times T}_1\mathrm{}_l$$

with each $`_i`$ flat over $`T`$ with Hilbert polynomial $`\chi (𝐏^1,(_i)_t(m))=(m+1)r_i+d_i`$ on the fibers of $`\pi _T:𝐏^1\times TT`$. This last condition requires that $`_i`$ be of rank $`r_i`$ and relative degree $`d_i`$ over $`T`$, so that for any $`tT`$, $`(_i)_t`$ is of degree $`d_i`$.

It is proven that the functor $`_𝐝`$ is represented by the projective scheme $`𝒬_𝐝=𝒬_𝐝(𝐅(n;𝐬))`$ following the ideas of Grothendieck and Mumford \[C-F2\]\[G\]\[M\]. It has also been described in a different way by Kim \[K\], as a closed subscheme of a product of Quot schemes. Kim also proves the following result:

###### Theorem 2 (Kim).

$`𝒬_𝐝(𝐅(n;𝐬))`$ is an irreducible, rational, nonsingular, projective variety of dimension

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}d_i(s_{i+1}s_{i1})+dim(𝐅(n;𝐬))$$

with $`s_0=0,s_{l+1}=n`$ and $`dim(𝐅(n;𝐬))=_{i=1}^l(s_{i+1}s_i)s_i.`$ In particular, the theorem states that $`dim𝒬_𝐝(𝐅(n))=2|d|+\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{2}\right)`$ where $`|d|=_{i=1}^ld_i.`$

Associated to $`𝒬_𝐝(𝐅(n;𝐬))`$ is a universal sequence of sheaves on $`𝐏^1\times 𝒬_𝐝`$ of successive quotients of sheaves, each of which is flat over $`𝒬_𝐝`$.

$$V_{𝐏^1\times 𝒬_𝐝}B_1\mathrm{}B_l.$$

Define $`A_i`$ as the kernel of $`V_{𝐏^1\times 𝒬_𝐝}B_i`$. Each $`A_i`$ is flat over $`𝒬_𝐝`$, and it is an easy consequence of flatness that each $`A_i`$ is locally free. Thus, we have the following universal sequence on $`𝐏^1\times 𝒬_𝐝`$:

(1)
$$A_1A_2\mathrm{}A_lV_{𝐏^1\times 𝒬_𝐝}B_1\mathrm{}B_l.$$

with $`A_i`$ of rank $`s_i`$, $`B_i`$ of rank $`ns_i`$. Denote the inclusion maps by $`\gamma _i:A_iA_{i+1}`$ and the surjections by $`\pi _i:B_{i1}B_i`$ for each $`1il`$. Here, we define $`A_{l+1}=B_0=V_{𝐏^1\times 𝒬_𝐝}`$ and $`A_0=B_{l+1}=0`$. The map $`\gamma _i:A_iA_{i+1}`$ is an inclusion of sheaves, not an inclusion of bundles.

The following proposition, proved by Ciocan-Fontanine following the ideas in Kollar’s work on Hilbert schemes, determines the Zariski tangent space of $`𝒬_𝐝`$ at a point \[Ko\].

###### Proposition 1.

Let $`x𝒬_𝐝`$ correspond to successive quotients and subsheaves of $`V_{𝐏^1}`$:

$$𝒜_1\mathrm{}𝒜_lV_{𝐏^1\times 𝒬_𝐝}_1\mathrm{}_l.$$

Then we have the following exact sequence:

$$0(T_{𝒬_𝐝})_x\underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_i,_i)\stackrel{d}{}\underset{i=1}{\overset{l1}{}}\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_i,_{i+1})0$$

where $`(T_{𝒬_𝐝})_x`$ is the Zariski tangent space to $`𝒬_𝐝`$ at the point $`x`$, and $`d`$ is the restriction of the difference map given by $`d(\{\varphi _i\})=\{\pi _{i+1}\varphi _i\varphi _{i+1}\gamma _i\}`$.

## 3. A Torus Action

In this section, we use the torus action introduced by Strømme in Theorem 3.6 of \[S\]. In the case of the ordinary Quot scheme, we obtain the same description of the fixed points as Strømme, but with slightly different notation. Our description allows us to provide a full description of the fixed point locus of the hyperquot scheme under this torus action.

Consider a maximal (n-dimensional) torus $`T`$ in $`GL(V)`$ which acts on $`V`$ and hence induces an action on subsheaves of $`V_{𝐏^1}`$. As a $`T`$-module, $`V`$ splits as a direct sum of one-dimensional subspaces, $`_{i=1}^nW_i`$. Denote $`𝒪_i:=W_i𝒪_{𝐏^1}`$.

For $`f_kH^0(𝐏^1,𝒪_{𝐏^1}(d_k))`$, a form of degree $`d_k`$, let $`f_k𝒪_i(d_k)𝒪_i`$ denote the sheaf $`𝒪_i(d_k)`$ defined by the section $`f_k`$.

###### Lemma 1.

A locally free subsheaf $`𝒮V_{𝐏^1}`$ of rank $`s`$ and degree $`d`$ is fixed by the action of $`T`$ if and only if it is of the form

$$𝒮=\underset{k=1}{\overset{s}{}}f_k𝒪_{c_k}(d_k)$$

where $`d_k`$ are nonnegative integers such that $`_kd_k=d`$, $`1c_1<\mathrm{}<c_sn`$, and $`f_k`$ is a homogeneous form in $`X`$ and $`Y`$ of degree $`d_k`$.

Proof. Since $`T`$ acts with different weights on each $`𝒪_i`$, $`𝒮V_{𝐏^1}`$ is a fixed point of $`T`$ if and only if $`𝒮=_{i=1}^n𝒮_i`$ where $`𝒮_i:=𝒮𝒪_i`$. Since $`\text{rank}(𝒮)=s`$, $`𝒮_i\mathrm{}`$ for exactly $`s`$ such $`i`$, say $`𝒮_{c_k}\mathrm{}`$ for a sequence $`1c_1<\mathrm{}<c_sn`$.

Since we have $`𝒮_{c_k}𝒪_{c_k}`$, we know that we can write $`𝒮_{c_k}=𝒪_{c_k}(d_k)`$ for some nonnegative integer $`d_k`$.

Threfore we have:

$$𝒮=\underset{k=1}{\overset{s}{}}𝒮_{c_k}=v\underset{k=1}{\overset{s}{}}𝒪_{c_k}(d_k),$$

where deg $`𝒮_{c_k}=d_k`$ with $`_{k=1}^sd_k=d`$. Since the inclusion of $`𝒮_{c_k}`$ is given by some section $`f_k`$, which is a polynomial of degree $`d_k`$ in $`X`$ and $`Y`$, the lemma is proven.

Let $`T^{}`$ be the one-dimensional torus which acts on $`H^0(𝒪_{𝐏^1}(1))`$ by $`XtX`$ and $`Yt^1Y`$. Then $`T^{}`$ acts on $`𝐏^1`$ and hence on subsheaves of $`V_{𝐏^1}`$. Thus under the action of the product torus $`T\times T^{}`$, the fixed points are subsheaves $`𝒮V_{𝐏^1}`$ fixed by both $`T`$ and $`T^{}`$. A point $`(_{k=1}^sf_k𝒪_{c_k}(d_k)V_{𝐏^1})`$ is fixed by $`T^{}`$ if and only if each $`f_k`$ is a monomial in $`X`$ and $`Y`$.

Therefore, we have proven:

###### Lemma 2.

A locally free subsheaf $`SV_{𝐏^1}`$ of rank $`s`$ and degree $`d`$ is fixed under the action of $`T\times T^{}`$ if and only if it is of the form

$$\underset{k=1}{\overset{s}{}}X^{a_k}Y^{b_k}𝒪_{c_k}(a_kb_k).$$

Here, $`𝒪_i`$ denotes the $`i`$th component of the trivial rank $`n`$ vector bundle $`V_{𝐏^1}`$, and $`(a,b,c)`$ are sequences of $`s`$ nonnegative integers satisfying:

1. $`_{k=1}^sa_k+b_k=d`$
2. $`1c_1<\mathrm{}<c_sn`$

Remark. This combinatorial data is equivalent to the fixed point data of Strømme. For an element $`(\alpha ,\beta ,\delta )`$ as in \[S\], let $`\delta _{c_1}=\mathrm{}\delta _{c_{nr}}=1`$ be the nonzero elements, with $`1c_1<\mathrm{}<c_{nr}n`$. Then the sequence $`(\alpha ,\beta ,\delta )`$ corresponds to the sequence $`(a,b,𝐜)`$.

### 3.1. A torus action on $`𝒬_𝐝`$

Note that a point of $`𝒬_𝐝`$ can be given by successive subsheaves over $`𝐏^1`$ of $`V_{𝐏^1}=_{i=1}^n𝒪_i`$.

Let $`T`$ and $`T^{}`$ be as above. Since the actions of $`T`$ and $`T^{}`$ extend to actions on $`𝒬_𝐝(𝐅(n;𝐬))`$, we have an action of $`T\times T^{}`$ on $`𝒬_𝐝`$.

Using the same methods as used in section 3, we find the fixed points of $`𝒬_𝐝`$ under this action.

A point of $`𝒬_𝐝`$ can be given by a sequence of subsheaves

$$𝒜_1\mathrm{}𝒜_lV_{𝐏^1}$$

where rank $`𝒜_i=s_i`$ and $`\mathrm{deg}𝒜_i=d_i`$. Let $`𝒜`$ denote this sequence $`\{𝒜_i\}_{i=1}^l`$. Then $`𝒜`$ is fixed by the action of $`T\times T^{}`$ if and only if each $`𝒜_iV_{𝐏^1}`$ is fixed and the inclusions $`𝒜_i𝒜_{i+1}`$ hold. By Proposition 2, $`𝒜_i`$ is fixed when

$$𝒜_i=\underset{j=1}{\overset{s_i}{}}𝒜_{i,j}:=\underset{j=1}{\overset{s_i}{}}X^{a_{i,j}}Y^{b_{i,j}}𝒪_{c_{i,j}}(a_{i,j}b_{i,j})$$

where $`_{1js_i}a_{i,j}+b_{i,j}=d_i`$ and $`1c_{i,s_{i1}+1}<\mathrm{}<c_{i,s_i}n`$. Here, we denote by $`𝒪(ab)`$ the line bundle on $`𝐏^1`$ given by global section $`X^aY^b`$.

The inclusion $`𝒜_i𝒜_{i+1}`$ holds under exactly the following conditions:

1. $`c_{i,j}=c_{i+1,j}`$ whenever $`1js_i`$.
2. (2)
$$𝒪_{c_{i,j}}(a_{i,j}b_{i,j})𝒪_{c_{i,j}}(a_{i+1,j}b_{i+1,j})$$

is an inclusion of sheaves.

Let $`S:=S(n;s_1,\mathrm{}s_l)`$ be the subset of $`S_n`$ consisting of permutations $`\sigma S_n`$ such that if $`\sigma (i)<\sigma (i+1)`$ unless $`i(s_1,\mathrm{}s_l)`$. More explicitly, an element $`\sigma S`$ is such that

(3)
$$\sigma (s_{i1}+1)<\mathrm{}<\sigma (s_i)\text{ for }1il.$$

Therefore every sequence $`\{c_{i,j}\}`$ corresponds to an element $`\sigma S`$ by $`c_{i,j}=\sigma (j)`$, and this correspondence is a bijection by the first condition above.

The second condition gives conditions on the sequences of nonnegative integers $`a`$ and $`b`$. The inclusion of sheaves $`𝒪(a_{i,j}b_{i,j})𝒪`$ is given by the global section $`X^{a_{i,j}}Y^{b_{i,j}}`$ and $`𝒪(a_{i+1,j}b_{i+1,j})𝒪`$ is given by the global section $`X^{a_{i+1,j}}Y^{b_{i+1,j}}`$. Therefore (2) gives an inclusion of subsheaves if and only if that inclusion is given by global sections

$$X^{a_{i,j}a_{i+1,j}}Y^{b_{i,j}b_{i+1,j}}$$

so that the conditions $`a_{i,j}a_{i+1,j}0`$ and $`b_{i,j}b_{i+1,j}0`$ must hold.

Let $`P`$ be the set of $`(a,b,\sigma )`$ such that $`a`$ and $`b`$ are sequences of nonnegative integers $`a_{i,j}`$ and $`b_{i,j}`$ with $`1il,1js_i`$, and $`\sigma S(n;s_1,\mathrm{},s_l)`$ which satisfy:

1. $`a_{i,j}a_{i+1,j}`$
2. $`b_{i,j}b_{i+1,j}`$
3. $`_{j=1}^{s_i}a_{i,j}+b_{i,j}=d_i`$

For $`(a,b,\sigma )P`$, define

$$𝒜_{i,j}=\{\begin{array}{cc}𝒪_{\sigma (j)}(a_{i,j}b_{i,j})& \text{ for }1il\text{ and }1js_i\hfill \\ 0& \text{ otherwise}\hfill \end{array}$$

This defines sequences of subsheaves $`𝒜_{i,j}𝒜_{i+1,j}`$. Let $`𝒜_i=_{j=1}^{s_i}𝒜_{i,j}`$. Let $`r(a,b,\sigma )𝒬_𝐝`$ be the associated flag of subsheaves of $`V_{𝐏^1}`$. We have proven:

###### Proposition 2.

$`r:P𝒬_𝐝`$ is a bijection onto $`𝒬_𝐝^{T\times T^{}}`$.

Let $`_{i,j}:=V_{𝐏^1}/𝒜_{i,j}`$ be the corresponding quotient so that we have the following short exact sequences:

(4)
$$0𝒜_{i,j}V_{𝐏^1}_{i,j}0$$

Similarly, define the sheaves $`_i=_{j=1}^{s_i}_{i,j}`$.

### 3.2. Euler characteristic

Under a generic choice of one-dimensional subtorus $`\mathrm{\Gamma }T\times T^{}`$, $`𝒬_𝐝`$ has isolated fixed points under the action of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, with $`𝒬_𝐝^\mathrm{\Gamma }=𝒬_𝐝^{T\times T^{}}`$. We know by Theorem 2 that $`𝒬_𝐝(𝐅(n;𝐬))`$ is a nonsingular complex projective variety. The odd cohomology of $`𝒬_𝐝`$ vanishes since the fixed point locus $`𝒬_𝐝^\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is finite \[BB1\] \[BB2\]. Therefore, the Euler characteristic is the number of fixed points. The fixed point data has been collected into the combinatorial data of the set $`E`$, so that the Euler characteristic is the cardinality of $`E`$. In this section, we find a generating function for the Euler characteristics of the hyperquot schemes. We prove:

###### Theorem 3.

$$\underset{d_1,\mathrm{}d_l}{}\chi (𝒬_𝐝(𝐅(n;𝐬)))t_1^{d_1}\mathrm{}t_l^{d_l}=\left(\mathrm{\#}(S)\right)\left(\underset{1ijl}{}\frac{1}{(1t_i\mathrm{}t_j)^{s_is_{i1}}}\right)^2$$

The cardinality of the set of permutations $`S=S(n;s_1,\mathrm{},s_l)`$ is:

$$\mathrm{\#}(S)=\underset{i=0}{\overset{l}{}}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{ns_i}{s_{i+1}s_i}\right)$$

with $`s_0=0,s_{l+1}=n`$.

Proof. Let $`\alpha _{i,j}=a_{i,j}a_{i+1,j}`$ and $`\beta _{i,j}=b_{i,j}b_{i1,j}`$, where we let $`a_{l+1,j}=b_{l+1,j}=0`$. Then $`a_{i,j}=_{k=i}^l\alpha _{k,j}`$ and $`b_{i,j}=_{k=i}^l\beta _{k,j}`$. Note that while the variables $`(a,b)`$ satisfy various inequalities, the nonnegative integers of $`(\alpha ,\beta )`$ are independent. Consider the set $`P^{}`$ of elements $`(\alpha ,\beta ,\sigma )`$ with $`\sigma S`$ satisfying:

(5)
$$\underset{k=i}{\overset{l}{}}\underset{j=1}{\overset{s_i}{}}\alpha _{k,j}+\beta _{k,j}=d_i.$$

Let $`P^{\prime \prime }`$ denote the set of pairs $`(\alpha ,\beta )`$ of natural numbers satisfying the linear relations (5). We have constructed a bijection between $`E`$ and $`E^{}`$, so that $`\chi (𝒬_𝐝(𝐅(n;𝐬)))=\mathrm{\#}(P)=\mathrm{\#}(P^{})=\mathrm{\#}(S)\mathrm{\#}(P^{\prime \prime })`$

We see that

$`\left({\displaystyle \underset{1ijl}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(1t_i\mathrm{}t_j)^{s_is_{i1}}}}\right)^2`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{1ijl}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{s_{i1}<ks_i}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha _{k,j}}{}}(t_i\mathrm{}t_j)^{\alpha _{k,j}}{\displaystyle \underset{\beta _{k,j}}{}}(t_i\mathrm{}t_j)^{\beta _{k,j}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha _{k,j}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\beta _{k,j}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}}t_i^{_{k=i}^l_{j=1}^{s_i}\alpha _{k,j}+\beta _{k,j}}`$
so that each set of natural numbers $`(\alpha ,\beta )`$ satisfying the relations (5) contributes exactly one to the coefficient of $`t_1^{d_1}\mathrm{}t_l^{d_l}`$. This proves the theorem.

## 4. An implicit formula for the Betti numbers

Let $`N>>0`$ be a large integer. Let $`\mathrm{\Gamma }T\times T^{}`$ be the one-dimensional subtorus which acts on $`𝒪_i`$ by $`tv=t^{Ni}v`$ and acts on $`H^0(𝐏^1,𝒪(1))`$ by $`XtX,Yt^1Y`$. It is this $`^{}`$ action of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ on $`𝒬_𝐝(𝐅(n;𝐬))`$ which is used.

In order to find information about the contribution of the various fixed points to the Betti numbers, we must consider our $`^{}`$ action of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ on $`𝒬_𝐝`$ more carefully.

Fix the following notation. Consider $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ a $`^{}`$-action on a scheme $`X`$. If $`xX`$ is a fixed point of this action, and $`E`$ is a bundle over $`X`$, denote by $`E_x^+`$ the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$\- submodule of $`E(x)`$ where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ acts with positive weights. In particular, the theorems of Bialynicki-Birula state that for isolated fixed points $`\{x_i\}X_\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, there is a cell decomposition of $`X`$ given by the orbits $`X_i`$ of $`x_i`$, with $`dim_{}X_i=dim_{}T_X(x_i)^+`$ \[BB1\] \[BB2\].

We first compute the tangent weights at the fixed points of the $`^{}`$ action of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ on $`𝒬_𝐝`$. For $`\sigma S`$, define $`ϵ_{i,j}^\sigma `$ for $`1i,jn`$ by $`ϵ_{i,j}^\sigma =1`$ if $`\sigma (i)<\sigma (j)`$, $`ϵ_{i,j}^\sigma =0`$ otherwise. Note that $`ϵ_{i,j}+ϵ_{j,i}=1`$ for $`ij`$. Define $`\epsilon _{i(k,k^{}]}^\sigma `$ for $`1i,k,k^{}l`$ by $`\epsilon _{i(k,k^{}]}^\sigma =_{s_k<js_k^{}}ϵ_{i,j}`$ and similarly define $`\epsilon _{(k,k^{}]j}^\sigma =_{s_k<is_k^{}}ϵ_{i,j}`$. If the permutation $`\sigma `$ is understood, it may be suppressed.

Define a map $`h:P`$ by:

$`h(a,b,\sigma )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{ks_i}{}}(a_{i,k}+b_{i,k}+1)\epsilon _{k(i,i+1]}^\sigma `$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{ks_i}{}}(a_{i,k}+b_{i,k})\epsilon _{(i1,i]k}^\sigma +{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{s_i<ks_{i+1}}{}}b_{i,k}`$
Then we have the following implicit formula for the Betti numbers of the hyperquot scheme:

###### Proposition 3.

For any (nonnegative) integer $`M`$,

$$b_{2M}(𝒬_𝐝(𝐅(n;𝐬)))=\text{rank }A_M(𝒬_𝐝)=\mathrm{\#}(h^1(M)).$$

Proof. If we show that $`h(a,b,𝐞)=dim_{}(T_{𝒬_𝐝}(r(a,b,\sigma ))^+)`$, then by applying the theorems of Bialynicki-Birula, we will be done. Let $`𝒜`$ be the sequences of subsheaves associated to $`r(a,b,\sigma )𝒬_𝐝`$ as in section 3.1. From the short exact sequence on $`𝒬_𝐝`$ given in Lemma 1 we have:

$$0T_{𝒬_𝐝}(𝒜)\underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_i,_i)\underset{i=1}{\overset{l1}{}}\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_i,_{i+1})0.$$

Therefore the tangent weights of $`T_{𝒬_𝐝}(𝒜)`$ are those obtained by removing the weights of the quotient term from those of the middle term. In particular, the positive weights are also be obtained this way. More precisely, we can say that

$`dim_{}(T_{𝒬_𝐝}(𝒜))^+=`$
$`dim_{}\left({\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}}\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_i,_i)\right)^+dim_{}\left({\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{l1}{}}}\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_i,_{i+1})\right)^+.`$
Define maps $`h_{i,j}^k:P`$ for $`0ijl,k=1,2,3`$ as follows:

(7) $`h_{i,j}^1(a,b,\sigma )={\displaystyle \underset{ks_i}{}}(a_{i,k}+b_{i,k}+1)\epsilon _{k,(j,l+1]}^\sigma `$
$`h_{i,j}^2(a,b,\sigma )={\displaystyle \underset{ks_j}{}}(a_{j,k}+b_{j,k})\epsilon _{(0,i],k}^\sigma `$
$`h_{i,j}^3(a,b,\sigma )={\displaystyle \underset{ks_i}{}}b_{j,k}`$
where we allow zero maps when appropriate.

The proposition is then an immediate consequence of the following two lemmas.

###### Lemma 3.

For any $`ij`$, $`dim_{}(\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_i,_j))^+=(h_{i,j}^1+h_{i,j}^2+h_{i,j}^3)(a,b,\sigma )`$.

###### Lemma 4.

$$h(a,b,\sigma )=\underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}(h_{i,i}^1+h_{i,i}^2+h_{i,i}^3)(a,b,\sigma )\underset{i=1}{\overset{l1}{}}(h_{i,i+1}^1+h_{i,i+1}^2+h_{i,i+1}^3)(a,b,\sigma ).$$

We first prove Lemma 4.

As an immediate consequence of the definitions (7) we have:

$`h_{i,i}^1h_{i,i+1}^1={\displaystyle \underset{ks_i}{}}(a_{i,k}+b_{i,k}+1)\epsilon _{k,(i,i+1]}`$
$`h_{i,i}^2h_{i1,i}^2={\displaystyle \underset{ks_i}{}}(a_{i,k}+b_{i,k})\epsilon _{(i1,i],k}`$
$`h_{i,i}^3h_{i1,i}^3={\displaystyle \underset{s_{i1}<ks_i}{}}b_{i,k}`$
and since $`h_{l,l+1}^1=h_{0,1}^2=h_{0,1}^3=0`$, Lemma 4 follows. ∎

It only remains to prove Lemma 3. We have

$`\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_i,_j)={\displaystyle \underset{k,m}{}}\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_{i,k},_{j,m})=`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{ks_i}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{m>s_j}{}}\mathrm{Hom}(𝒪_{\sigma (k)}(a_{i,k}b_{i,k}),𝒪_{\sigma (m)}))`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{ks_i,ms_j}{}}\mathrm{Hom}(𝒪_{\sigma (k)}(a_{i,k}b_{i,k}),𝒪_{\sigma (m)}/𝒪_{\sigma (m)}(a_{j,m}b_{j,m}))`$
We have three situations to consider:

1. $`m>s_j`$

$`\mathrm{Hom}(𝒪_{\sigma (k)}(a_{i,k}b_{i,k}),𝒪_{\sigma (m)})`$ is of rank $`a_{i,k}+b_{i,k}+1`$, with weights the same sign as $`(\sigma (m)\sigma (k))`$ for $`N`$ large enough. The number of $`m>i`$ with $`\sigma (m)>\sigma (k)`$ is $`_{i<mn}ϵ_{k,m}`$. In the notation of (3), since $`s_{l+1}=n`$, this number is $`(a_{i,k}+b_{i,k}+1)\epsilon _{k,(j,l+1]}`$. This gives the term $`h_{i,j}^1(a,b,\sigma )`$ in Lemma 3.

2. $`km`$

$`\mathrm{Hom}(𝒪_{\sigma (k)}(a_{i,k}b_{i,k}),𝒪_{\sigma (m)}/𝒪_{\sigma (m)}(a_{j,m}b_{j,m}))`$ is of rank $`a_{j,m}+b_{j,m}`$, with weights the same sign as $`\sigma (m)\sigma (k)`$. Thus the positive weight contribution is $`_{ks_i}(a_{j,m}+b_{j,m})ϵ_{k,m}=(a_{j,m}+b_{j,m})ϵ_{(0,i],m}`$, which gives the term $`h_{i,j}^2`$ in Lemma 3.

3. $`k=m`$

$`\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_{i,k},_{j,k})`$ sits inside the long exact sequence induced by the short exact sequence (4):

$`0`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_{i,k},𝒜_{j,k})\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_{i,k},𝒪_{\sigma (k)})`$
$`\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_{i,k},_{j,k})H^1(𝒜_{i,k}^{}𝒜_{j,k})0`$
We have two cases:

(a) $`𝒜_{i,k}𝒜_{j,k}`$. Here, equation (4) becomes

$$0\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_{i,k},𝒜_{j,k})\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_{i,k},𝒪_{\sigma (k)})\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_{i,k},_{i,k})0.$$

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ acts on $`\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_{i,k},𝒜_{j,k})`$ by $`tX^rY^s=X^{r(a_{i,k}a_{j,k})}Y^{s+(b_{i,k}b_{j,k})}`$ and on $`\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_{i,k},𝒪_{\sigma (k)})`$ by $`tX^rY^s=X^{ra_{i,k}}Y^{s+b_{i,k}}`$. Thus, the positive part of this piece of $`T_{𝒬_𝐝}(r(a,b,\sigma ))`$ has dimension $`b_{j,k}`$. This gives the $`h_{i,j}^3`$ term.

(b) $`𝒜_{i,k}\hookrightarrow ̸𝒜_{j,k}`$. From (4) we get

$$0\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_{i,k},𝒪_{\sigma (k)})\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_{i,k},_{j,k})H^1(𝒜_{i,k}^{}𝒜_{j,k})0.$$

We have $`H^1(𝒜_{i,k}^{}𝒜_{j,k})=H^1(𝒪((a_{i,k}a_{j,k})+(b_{i,k}b_{j,k}))).`$ By Serre duality and the same arguments as in the previous case, the positive contribution of $`\mathrm{Hom}(𝒜_{i,k},_{j,k})`$ is $`(b_{j,k}b_{i,k})+b_{i,k}=b_{j,k}`$. This gives the term $`h_{i,j}^3`$.

Therefore we have shown that $`dim_{}(T_{𝒬_𝐝}(𝒜))^+=h(a,b,\sigma )`$, so that the proposition is proved. ∎

## 5. Poincaré polynomials

We use the implicit formula for the Betti numbers proved in Proposition 3. Rewrite (4) as:

$`h(a,b,\sigma )={\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{ks_i}{}}\epsilon _{k(i,i+1]}+{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{s_{i1}<ks_i}{}}b_{i,k}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{ks_i}{}}(a_{i,k}+b_{i,k})(\epsilon _{k(i,i+1]}+\epsilon _{(i1,i]k})`$
Recall the sequences of independent nonnegative integers $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ introduced in the proof of Theorem 3, given by $`\alpha _{i,j}=a_{i,j}a_{i+1,j},\beta _{i,j}=b_{i,j}b_{i+1,j}`$. We see that $`a_{i,k}=_{ji}\alpha _{j,k}`$ and $`b_{i,k}=_{ji}\beta _{j,k}`$. Changing to the variables $`(\alpha ,\beta ,\sigma )`$, the middle sum of (5) becomes

$`{\displaystyle \underset{ijl}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{ks_i}{}}(\alpha _{j,k}+\beta _{j,k})(\epsilon _{k(i,i+1]}+\epsilon _{(i1,i]k})`$
$`={\displaystyle \underset{ijl}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{s_{i1}<ks_i}{}}(\alpha _{j,k}+\beta _{j,k})(\epsilon _{k(i,j+1]}+\epsilon _{(i1,j]k})`$
Therefore, we can simplify our expressions to get:

$`H(\alpha ,\beta ,\sigma ):=h(a,b,\sigma )={\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{ks_i}{}}\epsilon _{k(i,i+1]}+{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{l}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{ks_j}{}}\beta _{j,k}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{ijl}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{s_{i1}<ks_i}{}}(\alpha _{j,k}+\beta _{j,k})(s_js_i+\epsilon _{k(j,j+1]}+\epsilon _{(i1,i]k})`$
By the definition of $`H`$, we have shown

###### Proposition 4.

$$b_{2M}(𝒬_𝐝(𝐅(n;𝐬)))=\text{rank }A_M(𝒬_𝐝)=\mathrm{\#}(H^1(M)).$$

For $`wS`$, define $`P(w)`$ to be the elements $`(\alpha ,\beta ,\sigma )P`$ satisfying $`\sigma =w`$. Let $`H_w`$ denote the restriction of $`H`$ to $`F(w)`$. Then $`\mathrm{\#}(H_w^1(M))`$ counts the number of sequences of natural numbers $`(\alpha ,\beta )`$ satisfying the relation $`H_w(\alpha ,\beta )=M`$ given by (5) as well as the relations in (5). Since all of these relations are linear in the variables $`\alpha _{k,j}`$ and $`\beta _{k,j}`$, by the same reasoning as in the proof of Theorem 3, we have the following generating function:

$`{\displaystyle \underset{M,d_1,\mathrm{}d_l}{}}\mathrm{\#}(H_w^1(M))t_1^{d_1}\mathrm{}t_l^{d_l}z^M=`$
$`z^{_{il}_{ks_i}\epsilon _{k(i,i+1]}^w}{\displaystyle \underset{1ijl}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{s_{i1}<ks_i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{\rho _{i,j,k}}^{i,j}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{\rho _{i,j,k}+1}^{i,j}}}`$
where we have defined $`f_k^{i,j}=1t_i\mathrm{}t_jz^k`$ and $`\rho _{i,j,k}=s_js_i+\epsilon _{k(j,j+1]}^w+ks_{i1}1.`$

We are now ready to prove Theorem 1.

By the definitions of $`H`$ and $`H_w`$, we have

$$\mathrm{\#}(H^1(M))=\underset{wS}{}\mathrm{\#}(H_w^1(M))$$

and hence $`b_{2M}(𝒬_𝐝(𝐅(n;𝐬)))=_w\mathrm{\#}(H_w^1(M))`$. Therefore, by (5), it suffices to prove the following (purely combinatorial) result:

###### Proposition 5.

$`{\displaystyle \underset{wS(n;s_1,\mathrm{},s_l)}{}}z^{_{il}_{ks_i}\epsilon _{k(i,i+1]}^w}{\displaystyle \underset{1ijl}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{s_{i1}<ks_i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{\rho _{i,j,k}}^{i,j}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{\rho _{i,j,k}+1}^{i,j}}}`$
$`=\left({\displaystyle \frac{_{i=1}^n(1z^i)}{_{j=1}^{l+1}_{i=1}^{s_js_{j1}}(1z^i)}}\right){\displaystyle \underset{1ijl}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{s_{i1}<ks_i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{s_jk}^{i,j}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{s_{j+1}k+1}^{i,j}}}`$
We use induction on $`n`$ to prove the proposition.

For $`n=1`$, there are two cases:

1. $`s_1=0`$. Here, $`S(1;0)=S_1=id`$. Both sides of the equation are equal to $`1`$, so that the proposition holds.
2. $`s_1=1`$. We have $`S(1;1)=S_1=id`$. Both sides of the equation are equal to $`\frac{1}{(1z)(1tz)}`$, so again the proposition holds.

The strategy is to break up $`S=S(n;(s_1,\mathrm{},s_l))`$ into $`l+1`$ different permutation groups upon which we can use the inductive hypothesis.

For $`1ml+1`$, let $`S(m)`$ denote the subset of $`S`$ consisting of permutations $`w`$ such that $`w(s_{m1}+1)=1`$. It is clear that $`S=_mS(m)`$ is a disjoint union. Any $`wS(m)`$ satisfies: $`ϵ_{s_{m1}+1,j}^w=1`$ for $`js_{m1}+1`$ and $`ϵ_{i,s_{m1}}^w=0`$ for all $`i`$.

For $`wS(m)`$, let $`w^{}S^{}:=S(n1;s_1^{},\mathrm{},s_l^{})`$ be defined by:

1. $`w^{}(i)=w(i)1`$ for $`is_{m1}`$
2. $`w^{}(j)=w(j+1)1`$ for $`s_{m1}+1<j`$.

Let $`ϵ_{i,j}^{}=ϵ_{i,j}^w^{}`$ and define $`\epsilon _{i(k,k^{}]}^{}`$ and $`\rho _{i,j,k}^{}`$ accordingly. Note that $`s_i^{}=s_i`$ for $`im1,s_j^{}=s_j1`$ for $`mj`$ and

(12)
$$\underset{il}{}\underset{ks_i}{}\epsilon _{k(i,i+1]}=(ns_m)+\underset{il}{}\underset{ks_i,ks_{m1}+1}{}\epsilon _{k(i,i+1]}.$$

We split the left hand sum over $`S`$ into sums over $`S(m)`$ for $`1ml+1`$. For each $`S(m)`$, we can factor out the parts of the product on the left hand side where $`i=m`$ and $`k=s_{m1}+1`$. Using (12), this gives:

$`{\displaystyle \underset{wS}{}}z^{_{il}_{ks_i}\epsilon _{k(i,i+1]}}{\displaystyle \underset{1ijl}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{s_{i1}<ks_i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{\rho _{i,j,k}}^{i,j}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{\rho _{i,j,k}+1}^{i,j}}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{l+1}{}}}z^{ns_m}{\displaystyle \underset{mj}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{s_{j+1}s_m}^{m,j}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{s_{j+1}s_m+1}^{m,j}}}`$
$`({\displaystyle \underset{wS(m)}{}}z^{_{il}_{ks_i^{}}\epsilon _{k(i,i+1]}^{}}{\displaystyle \underset{imj}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{s_{i1}^{}<ks_i^{}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{\rho _{i,j,k}^{}+1}^{i,j}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{\rho _{i,j,k}^{}+2}^{i,j}}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{\begin{array}{c}ij\\ m>i\text{ or }j<m\end{array}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{s_{i1}^{}<ks_i^{}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{\rho _{i,j,k}^{}}^{i,j}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{\rho _{i,j,k}^{}+1}^{i,j}}}).`$
By induction. we may apply the result to $`S(m)\stackrel{}{=}S(n1;s_1^{},\mathrm{},s_{l+1}^{})`$ to the quantity in parentheses. In particular, by what follows from the proof of Proposition 5 for $`S(m)`$, the sum becomes:

$`{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{l+1}{}}}z^{ns_m}{\displaystyle \underset{mj}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{s_{j+1}s_m}^{m,j}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{s_{j+1}s_m+1}^{m,j}}}`$
$`({\displaystyle \frac{_{i=1}^{n1}(1z^i)}{_{j=1}^{l+1}_{i=1}^{s_j^{}s_{j1}^{}}(1z^i)}}{\displaystyle \underset{imj}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{s_{i1}^{}<ks_i^{}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{s_j^{}k}^{i,j}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{s_{j+1}^{}k+1}^{i,j}}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{\begin{array}{c}ij\\ m>i\text{ or }j<m\end{array}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{s_{i1}^{}<ks_i^{}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{s_j^{}+1k}^{i,j}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{s_{j+1}^{}+1k+1}^{i,j}}}).`$
Since we have:

$$\frac{_{i=1}^n(1z^i)}{_{j=1}^{l+1}_{i=1}^{s_js_{j1}}(1z^i)}=\frac{_{i=1}^{n1}(1z^i)}{_{j=1}^{l+1}_{i=1}^{s_j^{}s_{j1}^{}}(1z^i)}\frac{1z^n}{1z^{s_ms_{m1}}},$$

we can write this sum explicity as:

$`{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{l+1}{}}}z^{ns_m}{\displaystyle \frac{_{i=1}^n(1z^i)}{_{j=1}^{l+1}_{i=1}^{s_js_{j1}}(1z^i)}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1z^{s_ms_{m1}})}{(1z^n)}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{mj}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{s_{j+1}s_m}^{m,j}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{s_{j+1}s_m+1}^{m,j}}}{\displaystyle \underset{mj}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{s_{m1}<ks_m1}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{s_jk}^{m,j}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{s_{j+1}+1k}^{m,j}}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{im1}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{s_{i1}<ks_i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{s_{m1}k}^{i,m1}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{s_m1k}^{i,m1}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\begin{array}{c}ij\\ im\\ jm1\end{array}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{s_{i1}<ks_i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{s_jk}^{i,j}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_{s_{j+1}+1k}^{i,j}}}`$
By clearing denominators, the proposition follows once we have proven:

###### Lemma 5.

$`(1z^n){\displaystyle \underset{1ijl}{}}f_{s_{j+1}s_i}^{i,j}=`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{l+1}{}}}z^{ns_m}(1z^{s_ms_{m1}}){\displaystyle \underset{im1}{}}f_{s_ms_{i1}}^{i,m1}{\displaystyle \underset{mj}{}}f_{s_js_m}^{m,j}{\displaystyle \underset{\begin{array}{c}ij\\ im\\ jm1\end{array}}{}}f_{s_{j+1}s_i}^{i,j}`$
Proof. First, we change our notation so that we work with independent variables $`x_i`$ where we define $`x_r=t_1\mathrm{}t_r`$, with $`x_0=1`$. Then for any $`ij`$, we have $`t_i\mathrm{}t_j=x_j/x_{i1}`$. Therefore we have

$$f_k^{i,j}=1t_i\mathrm{}t_jz^k=\frac{x_{i1}x_jz^k}{x_{i1}}.$$

Substituting into both sides of Lemma 5 and multiplying through by $`x_0^lx_1^{l1}\mathrm{}x_l^0`$ it suffices to prove the following polynomial identity in the ring $`[x_0,\mathrm{}x_n,z]`$, where we define $`e_k^{i,j}=x_ix_jz^k`$:

(17)
$$(1z^n)\underset{1ijl}{}e_{s_{j+1}s_i}^{i1,j}=$$

$$\underset{m=1}{\overset{l+1}{}}z^{ns_m}(1z^{s_ms_{m1}})\underset{im1}{}e_{s_ms_{i1}}^{i1,m1}\underset{mj}{}e_{s_js_m}^{m1,j}\underset{\begin{array}{c}ij\\ im\\ jm1\end{array}}{}e_{s_{j+1}s_i}^{i1,j}.$$

The polynomial ring $`[x_0,\mathrm{}x_n,z]`$ is a unique factorization domain, and that the left side of (17) completely factored except for the term $`(1z^n)`$. Since the degree of $`z`$ matches on both sides, as does the term of $`t_1^0\mathrm{}t_l^0=1`$, namely $`(1z^n)`$, it is enough to show the right side vanishes with the relation $`e_{s_{j+1}s_i}^{i1,j}=0`$ for each $`ij`$, i.e. that $`(x_{i1}x_jz^{s_{j+1}s_i})`$ is a factor of the right side.

Fix $`ij`$. Then all but two summands on the right vanish. In particular, after some cancellations in the final terms of the two products, and bringing one of the terms to the other side, we have left to show:

(20) $`z^{ns_i}{\displaystyle \underset{pi1}{}}e_{s_is_{p1}}^{p1,i1}{\displaystyle \underset{iq}{}}e_{s_qs_i}^{i1,q}{\displaystyle \underset{\begin{array}{c}pj\\ pi\end{array}}{}}e_{s_{j+1}s_p}^{p1,j}{\displaystyle \underset{j+1q}{}}e_{s_{q+1}s_{j+1}}^{j,q}`$
(23) $`=z^{ns_{j+1}}{\displaystyle \underset{pj+1}{}}e_{s_{j+1}s_{p1}}^{p1,j}{\displaystyle \underset{j+1q}{}}e_{s_qs_{j+1}}^{j,q}{\displaystyle \underset{\begin{array}{c}iq\\ qj\end{array}}{}}e_{s_{q+1}s_i}^{i1,q}{\displaystyle \underset{pi1}{}}e_{s_is_p}^{p1,i1}`$
with the relation $`e_{s_{j+1}s_i}^{i1,j}=0`$.

But now, by doing the substitution $`x_{i1}=x_jz^{s_{j+1}s_i}`$ , we see that we will have proven Lemma 5 once we show that the polynomial identity (20) holds in the (unique factorization domain) $`[x_0,\mathrm{}x_{i2},x_i,\mathrm{}x_n,z]`$. We make the following observations about the substitution:

1. $`e_{s_is_{p1}}^{p1,i1}e_{s_{j+1}s_{p1}}^{p1,j}`$
2. $`e_{s_is_p}^{p1,i1}e_{s_{j+1}s_p}^{p1,j}`$
3. $`e_{s_qs_i}^{i1,q}\{\begin{array}{cc}z^{s_{j+1}s_i}e_{s_qs_{j+1}}^{j,q}\hfill & \text{when }j+1q\hfill \\ z^{s_qs_i}e_{s_{j+1}s_q}^{q,j}\hfill & \text{when }qj\hfill \end{array}`$
4. $`e_{s_{q+1}s_i}^{i1,q}\{\begin{array}{cc}z^{s_{j+1}s_i}e_{s_{q+1}s_{j+1}}^{j,q}\hfill & \text{when }jq\hfill \\ z^{s_{q+1}s_i}e_{s_{j+1}s_{q+1}}^{q,j}\hfill & \text{when }q<j\hfill \end{array}`$

Substituting into both sides of (20), and using the above properties, we have two completely factored polynomials on each side of the identity. It is easy to check that the degree of $`z`$ in the two terms match, that the sign matches, and that the factors of the form $`e_k^{i,j}`$ match exactly. ∎

This concludes the proof of Proposition 5 and Theorem 1.

For any scheme $`X`$, setting $`z=1`$ into the Poincaré polynomial

$$𝒫(X)=\underset{M}{}(1)^Mb_M(X)z^M$$

gives the Euler characteristic $`\chi (X)`$. Since odd cohomology of $`𝒬_𝐝`$ vanishes, this substitution into Theorem 1 provides another proof of Theorem 3.

## 6. Special cases

### 6.1. Quot scheme

We can apply Theorem 1 to the ordinary Quot scheme, parametrizing rank $`r`$ degree $`d`$ quotients of $`V_{𝐏^1}`$, to get a generating function for the Poincaré polynomials of $`𝒬_d(𝐆^r(n))`$.

###### Theorem 4.

$`{\displaystyle \underset{d}{}}𝒫(𝒬_d(𝐆^r(n)))t^d=`$
$`𝒫(𝐆^r(n)){\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{nr}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{1tz^{i1}}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{1tz^{ni+1}}}\right).`$
where $`𝒫(𝐆^r(n)`$ is the Poincaré polynomial of $`𝐆^r(n)`$, which is the following classical generating function for the Betti numbers for the Grassmannian:

$`𝒫(𝐆^r(n))={\displaystyle \underset{M}{}}b_{2M}(𝐆^r(n))z^M={\displaystyle \frac{_{i=1}^n(1z^i)}{_{i=1}^{nr}(1z^i)_{i=1}^r(1z^i)}}`$
This was the case studied by Strømme, who found implicit formulas for the Betti numbers, which are the same up to notation as those found in this paper. Generators and relations of the Chow ring of $`𝒬_𝐝`$ are also given in \[S\]. However, this set is far from minimal, and is not suited to the study of the Chow rings as the degree $`d`$ becomes large.

### 6.2. Hyperquot scheme for a complete flag variety

Consider the space $`𝒬_𝐝(𝐅(n;𝐬))`$ where $`l=n1`$ and $`s_i=i`$, i.e. the space $`𝒬_𝐝(𝐅(n))`$.

Fix $`n`$. Then we have the following generating function for the Poincaré polynomials of $`𝒬_𝐝(𝐅(n))`$ where $`𝐝=(d_1,\mathrm{},d_{n1})`$.

###### Theorem 5.

$`{\displaystyle \underset{d_1,\mathrm{}d_{n1}}{}}𝒫(𝒬_𝐝(𝐅(n)))t_1^{d_1}\mathrm{}t_{n1}^{d_{n1}}=`$
$`𝒫(𝐅(n)){\displaystyle \underset{1ijn1}{}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{1t_i\mathrm{}t_jz^{ji}}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{1t_i\mathrm{}t_jz^{ji+2}}}\right).`$
The classical term $`𝒫(𝐅(n))`$ is given by:

$$𝒫(𝐅(n))=\underset{M}{}b_{2M}(𝐅(n))z^M=\frac{_{i=1}^n(1z^i)}{_{j=1}^n(1z)}.$$

### 6.3. Examples

1. $`𝐅(1;0)=𝐆^1(1)`$ is a point and $`𝒬_d(𝐅(1;0))`$ is a point for $`d=0`$ and empty for $`d>0`$.

$$\underset{d}{}𝒫(𝒬_d(𝐅(1;0)))t^d=1$$

which is consistent with the theorem.
2. $`𝐅(1;1)=𝐆^0(1)`$ is a point. $`𝒬_d(𝐅(1;1))`$ parametrizes quotients of $`𝒪_{𝐏^1}`$ of rank $`0`$ and degree $`d`$, which are all of the form $`𝒪𝒪_D`$, where $`D\text{Sym}^d𝐏^1\stackrel{}{=}𝐏^d`$. Therefore $`𝒬_d(𝐅(1;1))\stackrel{}{=}𝐏^d`$, giving:

$$\underset{d,M}{}b_{2M}(𝐏^d)t^dz^M=\underset{d}{}t^d\left(\underset{Md}{}z^M\right)=\frac{1}{(1t)(1tz)}.$$
3. $`𝒬_d(𝐆^{n1}(n))`$ can be viewed as the space of sheaf injections $`𝒪(d)_{i=1}^n𝒪`$ up to equivalence. Each inclusion of sheaves is given by $`n`$ sections in $`H^0(𝐏^1,𝒪(d))`$. Thus, we can view any such inclusion as an element of the vector space $`_{i=1}^nH^0(𝒪(d))`$ of dimension $`n(d+1)`$. Two inclusions are equivalent exactly when they differ by a scalar. Hence, $`𝒬_d\stackrel{}{=}𝐏^{n(d+1)1}`$ so that $`𝒫(𝒬_d)=_{0Mn(d+1)}z^M`$.