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# On breaking the age-metallicity degeneracy in early-type galaxies: Outflows versus Star Formation Efficiency

## 1 Introduction

The process of galaxy formation and evolution can be explored in two complementary ways: A “forwards” approach takes into account the physics underlying the most basic processes of structure evolution and star formation and — after finding a suitable set of initial conditions — evolves the system forward so that the final output is compared with observations. This is the philosophy behind N-body simulations or semi-analytic modelling (e.g. Baugh et al. 1998; Kauffmann & Charlot 1998). On the other hand, a “backwards” approach simplifies the physics behind galaxy formation and evolution to a phenomenological problem comprising a reduced set of parameters, using local observations as constraints. Then the system is evolved backwards so that the predictions for a given set of parameters are compared with observations at moderate-to-high redshifts (e.g. Bouwens, Broadhurst & Silk 1998a,b). This “brute force” method allows one to search a reasonable volume of parameter space, throwing light on processes, such as star formation, which are otherwise too complicated to tackle from basic principles.

Cluster early-type galaxies are ideal candidates for a comparison between models and observations. Significant samples of these galaxies can be found over a large redshift range. Furthermore, the tight observed correlations such as the colour-magnitude relation or the fundamental plane can be used as powerful constraints on a phenomenological backwards approach. The list of observed clusters at moderate to high redshift is quite large (e.g. Dressler et al. 1999 ; Stanford, Eisenhardt & Dickinson 1998; Oke, Postman & Lubin 1998; Van Dokkum 1999) and ever increasing (e.g. Yee et al. 1999). Clusters observed at redshifts $`z11.5`$ yield valuable information about the epoch of star formation, pushing it to very high redshift ($`z_F3`$).

Unfortunately, the direct spectrophotometric determination of the star formation history is hampered by the age-metallicity degeneracy (Worthey 1994; Ferreras, Charlot & Silk 1999) which allows the variations of most of the spectrophotometric observables to be explained either by a range of ages or metallicities. Broadband photometry is strongly dependent both on age and metallicity but even spectral indices targeting single lines such as Balmer absorption or magnesium abundance can change both with age and metallicity. Not surprisingly, a similar age estimation technique based on spectral indices applied to similar sets of elliptical galaxies yields contradictory results: Kuntschner (2000) and Kuntscher & Davies (1998) find coeval stellar populations in Fornax cluster ellipticals so that the colour range is explained by a metallicity sequence. On the other hand, the sample of field and group ellipticals observed by González (1993) and further analysed by Trager et al. (2000) presents a relatively large spread in ages. Hence, the issue of the stellar age distribution in galaxies still requires the aid of modelling. We will show that incorporating chemical enrichment allows one to potentially solve the age-metallicity degeneracy problem. The next three sections describe our chemical enrichment model and the meaning of the reduced set of parameters used to trace the star formation history in cluster ellipticals. §5 deals with the comparison of predicted and observed mass-to-light ratios and its use at high redshift to discriminate between a mass sequence driven by age or metallicity. Finally in §6 we discuss the predictions and list the main conclusions.

## 2 Model description

The basic mechanisms describing chemical enrichment in galaxies can be reduced to infall of gas, metal-rich outflows triggered by supernovae, and a star formation prescription. Ferreras & Silk (2000, hereafter FS00) described one such simple model for an exponentially decaying infall rate of primordial gas in terms of five parameters: flow rate, timescale and delay of infall, ejected fraction in outflows, and star formation efficiency. Monotonically decreasing star formation rates (SFRs) always encounter the so-called G-dwarf problem. In FS00 the problem was avoided by assuming the metallicity effect was predominant with regard to the spectrophotometric output, thereby enabling us to convolve simple stellar populations with different metallicities given by the chemical enrichment equations but with an average common age.

The G-dwarf problem arises when comparing the predictions of closed box models with the observed paucity of low-metallicity low-mass stars in the halo of our galaxy (Van den Bergh 1962). However, this problem extends to all galaxies and morphologies (Worthey et al. 1996) since any model assuming a monotonically decreasing infall rate overproduces low-metallicity, low-mass stars. These models can be readily ruled out for bright cluster early-type galaxies because the convolution in age and metallicity of simple stellar populations with the chemical enrichment tracks predicted by these models yield $`UV`$ or $`VK`$ colours which are significantly bluer than the observed values, $`UV1.6`$, $`VK3.3`$ for Coma or Virgo (Bower, Lucey & Ellis 1992). The solution to this problem involves either pre-enrichment, i.e. shifting the zero-point of the metal abundance by assuming non-primordial infall (e.g. Sansom & Proctor 1998), or imposing an initial stage of moderate star formation that enriches the interstellar medium, followed by a second stage where most of the stars (with non-primordial abundances) are formed. Several authors (Elbaz, Arnaud & Vangioni-Flam 1995; Chiappini, Matteucci & Gratton 1997) have suggested two-stage processes to solve this problem, as well as a top-heavy initial mass function for the first star forming stage that overproduces high mass stars for a prompt enrichment of the interstellar medium, motivated by the fact that starbursts can be best explained by top-heavy mass functions (Charlot et al. 1993).

In this paper we present a model which avoids these assumptions and solves the G-dwarf problem by considering infall of primordial gas with a rate given by a gaussian distribution. This infall combined with a linear Schmidt law results in a gaussian profile for the star formation rate which is a suitable way of parametrizing a strongly peaked starburst. Furthermore, the extension of this profile to disk galaxies, and in particular to our own galaxy, accounts for the observed metallicity distribution of stars (Rocha-Pinto & Maciel 1996, Wyse & Gilmore 1995): the first stars are formed in a stage with a low SFR, but their contribution to the enrichment of the IGM, along with an increasing SFR with time yields a large population of stars with metallicities close to solar. Once the IGM has reached a very large metallicity — after the peak in the SFR — a low formation rate keeps the tally of stars with a high metal content as low as observed. In this scenario, the difference between early-type and late-type galaxies would amount to an extra component in the SFR for late-type systems, which continue to form stars at a slow rate (Ferreras & Silk, in preparation). Hence, the work in this paper uses the same chemical enrichment equations (described in FS00) based on the formalism described by Tinsley (1980), with just four parameters describing the star formation process, namely:

* Star Formation Efficiency ($`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$): The star formation rate is modelled by a linear Schmidt law, whose proportionality constant determines the formation efficiency. This parameter is a phenomenological approximation to the complex physics underlying star formation. Its inverse represents the timescale in Gyr over which the SFR is extended for a sharply peaked infall of gas. In the Instantaneous Recycling Approximation (IRA), the SFR ($`\psi (t)`$) and the infall rate ($`f(t)`$) are related by:

$$\psi (t)=C_{\mathrm{eff}}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑sf(ts)e^{s/\tau _g},$$
(1)
$$\tau _g=\frac{1}{C_{\mathrm{eff}}\left[1(1B_{\mathrm{out}})R\right]};$$
(2)
$`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$ is the ejected fraction of gas in outflows — defined below — and $`R`$ is the returned fraction. Low values of $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ extend the process of star formation, generating a larger age spread of the stellar populations.
* Gas Outflows ($`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$): Part of the metal-enriched gas in the IGM is heated by supernovae and ejected from the galaxy, decreasing the effective yield. This will be modulated by the gravitational potential well of the galaxy, so that bright and massive galaxies have lower ejected fractions and so, higher metal abundances (Larson 1974, Arimoto & Yoshii 1987). $`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$ represents the fraction of gas being ejected at each timestep.
* Formation redshift ($`z_F`$): This parameter describes the epoch — $`t(z_F)`$ — at which the infall rate (or roughly the SFR) was maximum.
* Infall timescale ($`\tau _f`$): Determines the duration of infall, so that the infall rate can be written:

$$f(t,\tau _f,z_F)=\frac{1}{\tau _f\sqrt{2\pi }}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\left(tt(z_F)\right)^2}{2\tau _f^2}\right]$$
(3)

For a given set of these four parameters ($`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$,$`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$, $`z_F`$,$`\tau _f`$) the equations give a chemical enrichment track which is used to convolve the simple stellar populations from the models of Bruzual & Charlot (2000) both in age and metallicity, to obtain a spectral energy distribution for a given redshift. Motivated by recent results of the angular power spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background (Melchiorri et al. 1999), we assume a flat cosmology with a cosmological constant ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$, H$`{}_{0}{}^{}=60`$ km s-1Mpc-1), although figure 1 shows the result for an open cosmology ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$) in the range of infall parameters ($`\tau _f`$ and $`z_F`$). The fiducial Initial Mass Function (IMF) chosen is a hybrid one between the Scalo (1986) and the Salpeter (1955) IMF with mass cutoffs $`0.1<M/M_{}<60`$. We have adopted the behaviour of the Scalo IMF for low stellar masses ($`M<2M_{}`$) and a Salpeter IMF for the high mass end. The shallow slope of the former for low masses better explains the observations, whereas the steeper slope at high masses of the Salpeter IMF seem to explain better the stellar populations in starbursts. For comparison purposes we show the difference between a Salpeter IMF and our mass function when calculating the correlation between mass-to-light ratio and mass (§5).

Broadband colours are computed from the spectral energy distribution obtained for a given star formation history described by these four parameters ($`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$,$`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$,$`z_F`$,$`\tau _f`$). The colour-magnitude relation observed in local clusters is used as a constraint, so that a one-to-one mapping is assumed between colour and absolute luminosity. We have used the observations of Coma early-type galaxies (ellipticals and lenticulars) by Bower et al. (1992), whose colour-magnitude relation has a scatter ($`\pm 0.05`$ mag) as small as the uncertainties expected from population synthesis models (Charlot, Worthey & Bressan 1996). Hence, for a given $`UV`$ colour obtained from the spectral energy distribution we infer an absolute luminosity:

$$M_V=\frac{(UV)+0.3830}{0.0871}.$$
(4)
This correlation was obtained by a robust two-stage linear fit technique which computes a first estimate of slope and zero point using absolute deviations (e.g. Press et al. 1992) and then applies a least-squares fit to the resulting sample after culling points that deviate more than a given threshold. This method prevents outliers from contributing significantly to the final slope and zero point. In this case the number of outliers was 4 out of 36 galaxies. Once the $`V`$-band absolute luminosity is found, the total stellar mass is obtained using the predicted mass-to-light ratio.

## 3 Constraints from bright cluster galaxies

The colour of the brightest galaxies in clusters at several redshifts is one of the strongest and most robust constraint that can be imposed on the model parameters. Rest frame $`UV`$ colour is very sensitive to age (as well as metallicity). The red $`UV`$ colours of the brightest early-type systems observed in Coma ($`UV1.6`$) need a dominant population of old stars with a metallicity around solar or higher. Hence, large infall timescales ($`\tau _f`$) or low formation redshifts are readily ruled out since they predict bluer $`UV`$ colours. Furthermore, observations of clusters at moderate redshifts (e.g. Ellis et al. 1997; Stanford, Eisenhardt & Dickinson 1998; Dressler et al. 1999) have found a colour-magnitude relation consistent with passive evolution, imposing again an old age and high metal content. This motivates the need to use a low ejected fraction ($`B_{\mathrm{out}}0`$) as well as a high star formation efficiency ($`C_{\mathrm{eff}}5`$) in order to reproduce the spectrophotometric properties of these galaxies. Figure 1 shows the constraint on infall parameters for the brightest galaxies using a grid of models with $`B_{\mathrm{out}}=0`$ and $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}=10`$. The $`z0`$ constraint imposes a colour$``$colour correlation between $`UV`$ and $`VK`$ as observed in Coma and Virgo (Bower et al. 1992) with a scatter of $`\pm 0.05`$ mag. Notice that as long as the bursting stage is short enough ($`\tau _f1`$ Gyr), formation redshifts as low as $`z_F1`$ can be accomodated with the photometric data (Ferreras et al. 1999). In fact, a simple stellar population (which is the extreme case of the model described in this paper as $`\tau _f0`$) gives a $`z=0`$ color of $`UV1.5`$ for a stellar population with solar metallicity and formation redshift $`z_F=1`$. This corresponds to a bright ($`M_V21.6`$) cluster galaxy. The $`z0.5`$ constraint imposes a colour F555W$``$F814W (which maps into restframe $`UV`$) redder than $`2.4`$ for the brightest cluster galaxies, as observed in Cl0016+16 ($`z=0.55`$, Ellis et al. 1997 ). The high redshift constraint requires $`RK5.7`$ as observed in cluster RX J0848.9+4452 ($`z=1.26`$, Rosati et al. 1999). These constraints rule out models with infall timescales $`\tau _f1.5`$ Gyr, which reduces the main star formation episode to less than $`3`$ Gyr. The formation redshift is less restricted, allowing the possibility of $`z_F3`$, or even $`z_F2`$ with a flat cosmology with a cosmological constant ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$).

The constraint on the allowed volume of parameter space with respect to infall and its subsequent process of star formation shown in figure 1 is rather robust as it takes into account an observable with a very small uncertainty, namely the broadband colours of the most luminous galaxies. Any significant process of star formation at later stages will readily translate into bluer colours which are ruled out by observations. The modelling of star formation rate as a gaussian profile allows the extension of single burst models to processes where several bursts of star formation take place, as in a “gaseous” merger scenario. The spectrophotometric predictions of a multi-burst scenario can be mimicked by a single gaussian infall rate with a longer time scale (Ferreras & Silk 2000b). Hence, if we consider RX J0848.9+4452 as a representative cluster which will evolve into something like Coma or Virgo, then any hierarchical merging scenario should yield gaseous mergers only at epochs earlier than $`z_F3`$. Merging stages at lower redshifts should not trigger any significant star formation, for example involving gas-poor progenitors and hot gas, as hinted at by observations of red merging galaxies in cluster MS$`105403`$ ($`z=0.83`$ Van Dokkum et al. 1999).

It is worth emphasizing at this point that the brightest galaxies we are dealing with in this model represent the brightest “non-peculiar” systems. Hence, the very brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) such as cDs should be excluded. In a recent paper, Aragón-Salamanca, Baugh & Kauffmann (1998) analysed the evolution with redshift of a sample of BCGs in 25 clusters in the redshift range $`0<z<1`$. They found no evolution, or even a fading of the absolute $`K`$-band luminosity which can be explained by a significant change (a factor of 2) in the stellar mass of these galaxies between redshifts $`z=1`$ and $`0`$. In the formalism of our model, the reddest — thereby brightest — galaxies are obtained in the corner of parameter space associated with high star formation efficiency ($`C_{\mathrm{eff}}510`$). This implies the star formation rate will be approximately given by the infall rate $`\psi (t)f(t)`$. For the allowed values of infall parameters ($`\tau _f`$, $`z_F`$) shown in figure 1, the change in stellar mass between redshifts $`z=1`$ and $`0`$ is very small, and so this model would not be compatible with BCGs. This type of galaxy requires a strong merger rate at late times ($`z1`$). Furthermore, the mergers should undergo no star formation, involving progenitors with either very little gas or hot gas. On the other hand, the evolution of the bulk of cluster early-type systems was explored in a sample of 38 clusters in a similar redshift range ($`0.1<z<1`$) by analysing the near-infrared luminosity function (De Propris et al. 1999). A significant positive luminosity evolution was found for the Schechter parameter $`K_{}`$ which traces the luminosity of the brightest galaxies. The evolution of $`K_{}`$ is found to be compatible with the passive evolution of a simple stellar population, which is consistent with the models presented in this paper for the range of infall parameters shown in figure 1.

## 4 Exploring parameter space

Once we have fixed a region in parameter space for the brightest “non-peculiar” cluster galaxies, we can extend the model to all early-type systems by exploring the parameters describing star formation efficiency and fraction of ejected gas in outflows. Figure 2 shows a contour of stellar masses for two realizations of infall ($`z_F=5`$, $`\tau _f=0.5`$ Gyr, dotted lines) and ($`z_F=5`$, $`\tau _f=1`$ Gyr, solid lines). The only constraint imposed is the colour-magnitude relation in Coma in order to relate colour — obtained from the star formation history described by a chosen set of parameters ($`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$, $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, $`\tau _f`$, $`z_F`$) — and luminosity, or stellar mass. The contours change slightly with infall parameters but the qualitative behaviour is unchanged. We need both a high star formation efficiency and a low ejected fraction in outflows to account for the most massive galaxies. Lowering the SF efficiency will generate a significant spread in stellar ages that will yield colours that are too blue compared with the observations. On the other hand, a higher ejected fraction will decrease the effective yield, so that the average metallicity will be lower, blueing the predicted colours with respect to the observations. Hence, regardless of the choice of parameters, we find the brightest cluster galaxies to lie in a well-defined corner of the 4-dimensional parameter space explored in this paper. Lower mass galaxies are harder to identify because of a degeneracy between outflow rates and star formation efficiency. The blueing of galaxies as we progress down in luminosity along the colour-magnitude relation can be explained either by decreasing the average metallicity of the stellar populations (i.e. a range of ejected fractions, $`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$) or by increasing the fraction of younger stars (i.e. a range of SF efficiencies, $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$). The real picture will likely involve a range both in $`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$ and $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$. At low redshift it is hard to disentangle the contribution from these two parameters, mainly caused by the age-metallicity degeneracy (Worthey 1994). However, these two alternative mechanisms will predict different evolutions with lookback time: as we go to higher redshift, the sequence driven by SF efficiency (hereafter $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ sequence) will show stronger evolutionary scars because of the larger scatter in age, whereas the sequence driven by outflows (hereafter $`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$ sequence) will be unaffected until the observations go back to the epoch of star formation.

Figure 3 shows the predicted distributions of stellar ages (left) and metallicities (right). The average (top) and standard deviation (bottom) of these distributions are shown for three sequences: $`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$,$`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and $`B_{\mathrm{out}}+C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ driven by outflows, star formation efficiency and a mixture of both, respectively. All of these models have $`\tau _f=1`$ Gyr, $`z_F=5`$; the $`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$ sequence fixes $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}=5`$; the $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ sequence fixes $`B_{\mathrm{out}}=0`$; and the mixed $`B_{\mathrm{out}}+C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ sequence imposes a correlation between these two parameters. We expect the star formation efficiency to be higher in more massive galaxies (where the ejected fraction should be lower), hence we have chosen: $`\mathrm{log}C_{\mathrm{eff}}=13B_{\mathrm{out}}`$, as an illustrative example. An outflow-driven sequence generates a pure metallicity sequence where the stellar populations of all galaxies are coeval. This is the model favored by the analysis of the colour-magnitude relation by Kodama et al. (1998) for a sample of 17 clusters in a wide redshift range ($`0.3<z<1.3`$). In a $`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$ sequence the colour-magnitude relation is due to a pure mass-metallicity correlation, so that the brightest galaxies have higher metal abundances. On the other hand, a $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ or a $`B_{\mathrm{out}}+C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ model represents mixed age+metallicity sequences as it generates a significant age spread of the stellar populations as well as a metallicity range. A pure age sequence explored in other papers (e.g. Kodama & Arimoto 1997) is ruled out when including chemical enrichment for any reasonable assumption about the star formation history of the galaxy. The low metallicity expected in the fainter galaxies can therefore be explained either by a lower effective yield caused by gas outflows, or by a low star formation efficiency that slows down the process of enrichment. Nagashima & Gouda (1999) mention the effect of the UV background radiation as a possible alternative to supernovae winds to suppress chemical enrichment. However, in this scenario it seems hard to motivate the correlation found with respect to luminosity (e.g. a stronger feedback should be expected from the UV background for the fainter galaxies). Figure 3 shows that a $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ sequence implies a $`3`$ Gyr age difference between the brightest systems and $`M_V16`$ galaxies with a larger age spread for the fainter galaxies, as expected for a system with a lower star formation efficiency. This model would thus be consistent with the smaller age and metallicity scatter found in Coma ellipticals (Jørgensen 1999). This age difference is negligible for local clusters, since the predicted youngest stars are still too old ($`8`$ Gyr) to be detected spectrophotometrically. However, predictions between a coeval sequence and a $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ sequence at lookback times $`8`$ Gyr (i.e. $`z1`$) differ significantly as shown below (§5). A $`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$ sequence predicts a small age and metallicity spread in faint ellipticals. In this case the observed photometric scaling relations are just driven by the average metallicity.

## 5 Mass-to-Light ratios: Stellar versus Observed

The evolution of the stellar mass-to-light ratio is a suitable probe for the analysis of the ages of the stellar populations in galaxies because of its weak dependence on metallicity (especially when measured in NIR passbands). However, observed $`M/L`$ ratios carry large uncertainties and systematic offsets as they are computed from central velocity dispersions ($`\sigma _0`$), sizes ($`r_e`$) and surface brightnesses ($`\mathrm{\Sigma }_e`$), requiring a prescription for the structure in order to infer masses and luminosities. From a simple dimensional analysis, we can write the mass and luminosity of a galaxy as:

$$M=\alpha \sigma _0^2r_e$$
(5)
$$L=\beta r_e^2\mathrm{\Sigma }_e$$
(6)
The proportionality constant $`\beta `$ only depends on the way the surface brightness is defined with respect to the effective size. However, $`\alpha `$ depends on the structure of the galaxy, which requires a dynamical model (e.g. King 1966; Bender, Burstein & Faber 1992), usually assumed to be invariant with regard to galaxy mass or size (i.e. homologous). Furthermore, a comparison between observations and model predictions depends on a prescription that relates stellar and total matter. Despite all these caveats, mass-to-light ratios are one of the best candidates for breaking the age-metallicity degeneracy.

Figure 4 shows the predicted $`M/L`$ ratios in two passbands: optical ($`V`$) and NIR ($`K`$) for a grid of $`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$ (thin) and $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ (bold) sequences. A $`B_{\mathrm{out}}+C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ mixed sequence would be represented by a trajectory between the grid spanned by these lines. The results are shown for three different infall timescales $`\tau _f=0.5,1,1.5`$ Gyr. The solid triangles are the observations of Coma cluster galaxies from Mobasher et al. (1999), whereas the dots represent ellipticals in 11 clusters from the sample of Pahre (1999). The slope of the correlation between mass-to-light ratios and masses is $`0.24`$ in the $`V`$ band and $`0.14`$ in $`K`$ band, whereas purely stellar $`M/L`$ ratios yield slopes around $`0.1`$ and $`0.0`$ in the $`V`$ and $`K`$ bands, respectively. This mismatch cannot be related to a different stellar population. Being a strongly age-dependent observable, the only way to generate the observed slopes in $`M/L`$ would require a stellar age spread with respect to galaxy mass whose restframe $`UV`$ colour would significantly disagree with the colours in moderate redshift cluster ellipticals. As a simple check to confirm this, we used simple stellar populations (SSP, i.e. no age or metallicity spread). If we relate the brightest galaxies ($`M_V22.5`$) to a SSP with an age of 12 Gyr and a super-solar metallicity $`Z=1.5Z_{}`$, the required age for the SSP for a $`M_V=19`$ galaxy which would explain the observed slope $`M/L_VM^{0.24}`$ should be $`t=4`$ Gyr ($`Z=Z_{}`$) or $`t=5`$ Gyr ($`Z=Z_{}/2`$). These two possibilities yield $`UV`$ colours of $`1.20`$ and $`1.07`$ respectively, so that the latter is barely consistent with the observed broadband photometry in nearby clusters (Bower et al. 1992). However, this hypothesis fails when considering moderate redshift clusters: for instance, cluster Cl0016+16 ($`z0.5`$) has a well-defined red-envelope in a large range of luminosities (Ellis et al. 1997), yet the lookback time ($`6.2`$ Gyr in our adopted cosmology) would be larger than the expected age for the stars in the fainter galaxies !

Hence, the only plausible way to solve this slope mismatch is by imposing a non-linear correlation between total mass (including dark matter) and stellar mass. A simple power law $`MM_{\mathrm{ST}}^{1.2}`$ (FS00) has been used in figure 4 to transform predicted stellar masses and mass-to-light ratios to total masses and $`M/L`$. The agreement is good in both bands, which means the observed slope difference in the fundamental plane between passbands can be explained by the stellar populations alone. This result agrees with the analysis of Jørgensen (1999) who refers to a higher fraction of dark matter in the most massive ellipticals in order to account for the mismatch between age estimates using $`M/L`$ ratios (which involves the total mass of the galaxies) or $`H\beta _G`$ indices (involving just the stellar component). However, one should bear in mind that there are alternative explanations for this slope mismatch, such as a systematic variation of the initial mass function or the breaking of the homology for the structural parameters of early-type systems (Jørgensen 1999; Pahre et al. 1998). Graham & Colless (1997) examined the effect of a non-homologous light profile in 26 early-type systems in the Virgo cluster and found no differences in the fundamental plane from estimates using a universal de Vaucouleurs profile.

Notice the scatter of the correlation is not the minimum one can obtain when computing the fundamental plane. The dependence of the fundamental plane on the observables (velocity dispersion, surface brightness and galaxy size) is not precisely the one inferred for the correlation between mass-to-light ratio and mass. This scatter has an observational component as well as an intrinsic contribution. The intrinsic part can be related to differences in either the stellar ages or the initial mass function of galaxies with the same mass. The former can be caused by slightly different formation redshifts or infall timescales. Notice the predictions of $`M/L`$ ratios for three different infall timescales in figure 4. A variation of 1 Gyr in infall timescale can account for changes in $`\mathrm{log}M/L`$ roughly of order $`0.1`$ dex. Furthermore, a non-universal IMF will add a variation around $`0.20.3`$ dex. The top-center panel displays the predictions for our fiducial “hybrid” IMF and a Salpeter IMF with the same mass cutoffs ($`0.1<M/M_{}<60`$). A different cutoff or slope at the high mass end will not change the result very much since these changes only have an effect on metallicity. However, changes in the low mass end of the IMF will significantly alter the mass-to-light ratio. Our “hybrid IMF” behaves like a Scalo function at low masses, whereas a Salpeter mass function produces a large fraction of low mass stars, thereby increasing the stellar $`M/L`$ ratio.

The different age distributions obtained for the $`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$ and $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ sequences generate different predictions for the evolution of the slope of the correlation between stellar $`M/L`$ ratio and mass. We have shown above that a $`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$ sequence (driven by outflows) is equivalent to a metallicity sequence. Hence, a very small slope change is expected since mass-to-light ratios are not very sensitive to metal abundance. Furthermore, the decrease in $`M/L`$ will be greater at higher metallicities (i.e. for the brightest galaxies), so that the correlation will get flatter. In order to quantify the slope change, an index $`\eta _X`$ is defined as the slope change between redshift $`z>0`$ and $`z=0`$ using mass-to-light ratios in the $`X`$ passband, namely:

$$\eta _X(z)\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{log}M/L_X}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{log}M}|_z\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{log}M/L_X}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{log}M}|_{z=0}$$
(7)
Hence, a $`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$ sequence predicts small negative values for $`\eta _X(z)`$. On the other hand, a $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ sequence is driven by age, so that the faintest galaxies — which will have a younger stellar population — will decrease their $`M/L`$ ratios with redshift faster than the brighter (and older) galaxies. This corresponds to a more significant and positive value for $`\eta _X(z)`$. Figure 5 shows the evolution of the slope (top panels) and zero point (bottom panels) of the correlation between mass-to-light ratio and mass for a range of infall timescales (left) or formation redshifts (right). The points show the observations of a few clusters in restframe $`B`$ band: Coma ($`z=0.02`$), Cl 1358+62 ($`z=0.33`$), Cl 0024+16 ($`z=0.39`$), MS 2053+03 ($`z=0.58`$) and MS1054-03 ($`z=0.83`$) from the compilation in Van Dokkum et al. (1998). Any sequence ($`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$, $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, $`B_{\mathrm{out}}+C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$) will predict a decrease of the zero point as the stellar populations get younger at higher redshift, although the zero point decreases faster for a $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ sequence, for which the average stellar population is younger. Current observations of moderate redshift cluster ellipticals allow an estimate of the zero point but not of the slope with enough accuracy. For instance, the study of Jørgensen et al. (1999) with clusters at low and moderate redshifts seem to indicate a steepening of the correlation between $`M/L`$ and mass, thereby favouring a $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ sequence. However, selection effects could actually mimic such behaviour. Forthcoming spectroscopic observations of cluster ellipticals will enable us to estimate this slope, thereby allowing us to determine the importance of outflows and star formation efficiency in the evolution of cluster early-type galaxies.

## 6 Discussion

A simple phenomenological treatment is described in this paper, where the mechanisms underlying the evolution of galaxies are reduced to a set of four parameters. The star formation rate is assumed to follow a linear Schmidt law whose proportionality constant is used to describe a varying star formation efficiency ($`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$). The supply of primordial gas fuelling star formation is controlled by gaussian infall characterised by the epoch at which the infall rate is maximum ($`z_F`$), and the width of the gaussian profile gives a characteristic infall timescale ($`\tau _f`$). The model is allowed to eject a fraction ($`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$) of the enriched gas, thereby lowering the effective yield. A first stage in this analysis involves finding a suitable pair of infall parameters ($`z_F`$,$`\tau _f`$) which are capable of generating the restframe $`UV`$ colours of the brightest cluster galaxies. The colour constraints imposed by the reddest (and brightest) galaxies in clusters at moderate and high redshift allow us to discard long infall timescales and recent star formation epochs. One could argue that the constraint on the star formation history of the brightest systems need not be the same as for less massive ellipticals. However, the current most plausible scenarios for galaxy formation assume either a simultaneous process of star formation regardless of galaxy mass, or a hierarchical structure where the most massive galaxies might have undergone the latest bursts of star formation. Furthermore, the possibility of an “inverted-hierarchical” scenario can still be accomodated in this model, as long as the constraints imposed ($`z_F3`$,$`\tau _f1`$ Gyr) are held even for the less massive galaxies.

Out of the four parameters considered in the model, we have found that — within the framework of this model — only the SF efficiency ($`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$) and the ejected fraction in outflows ($`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$) help determine the mass sequence in cluster early-type galaxies. Infall parameters ($`z_F`$,$`\tau _f`$) do not appreciably change much the output unless very recent stages of star formation are included. However, this will result in restframe $`UV`$ colours that are in contradiction with observations. The efficiency parameter generates a significant spread in the age distribution of stars, although mixed with a metallicity range (any model with a reasonable IMF must include this range of abundances). Alternatively, a range of outflow rates result in a range of metallicities with no significant spread in ages. Both mechanisms are degenerate in local clusters because the average age of the stellar populations predicted for any model at $`z=0`$ are too old to be able to disentangle the effects of age and metallicity. However, the predictions of age-sensitive observables at high redshift differ noticeably for these two sequences. Unfortunately, present data is not capable of ruling out one model against the other, but the continuing flow of data from clusters at moderate-to-high redshift will eventually enable us to break this degeneracy. A sequence driven by efficiency ($`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ sequence) predicts a steepening of the slope of the fundamental plane, whereas a $`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$ sequence — driven by outflows — predicts no change or a slight decrease of this slope. High precision observations of the dynamical and spectrophotometric properties of cluster galaxies at high redshift will confirm the importance of either age or metallicity in the mass range of cluster ellipticals.

## Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the anonymous referee for useful comments and suggestions.


text:
# 1 Introduction and Summary

## 1 Introduction and Summary

The study of the AdS/CFT correspondence has been the major occupation of the hep-th-community since the initial breakthroughs of . Amongst the many aspects of the correspondence, one of the most intriguing is the possibility of formulating the field theoretical RG flow in terms of the classical dynamics of the gravitational theory in the bulk .

In studying the RG flow induced by certain operators from an ultra-violet (UV) fixed point, one needs to have a dictionary associating each operator to the appropriate field in the bulk. This requires resolving some possible ambiguity  arising for a specific range of bulk masses near the stability bound , which amounts to making a choice between two theories, both in principle described by the same bulk fields. Usually, only one such theory is supersymmetric and the allowed values for the conformal weight $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ can be read off from the representations of supersymmetry. After the association is made, one still needs to determine whether one is deforming the UV Lagrangian by adding the operator itself or simply going to a different vacuum where the operator acquires a non-zero vacuum expectation value (vev). (For a clear exposition of this point see ). In view of this physical interpretation, not all the solutions to the gravity theory are acceptable, for instance one should rule out flows in which a positive definite operator acquires a negative vev. We will shortly discuss these conditions.

In a related development, it was noticed in  that a formulation of gravity in first order Hamiltonian formalism provides further insights into the RG 666That the RG equations can be given a Hamiltonian structure was noticed some years ago .. The double way of writing the equations – one as a second order Lagrangian system supplemented by the zero energy constraint and the other as a first order system written in terms of a “superpotential” – is the origin of some confusion in the implementation of the holographic RG. The name superpotential in this context is somewhat of a misnomer because, whereas the Hamilton-Jacobi equations have a continuum set of solutions parameterized by the constants of motion, only one such solution can be regarded as the superpotential arising in a supersymmetric theory of gravity. We shall reserve the name superpotential for the truly supersymmetric one and call all the solutions to the Hamilton-Jacobi equation generating functions.

In many circumstances, the few particular generating functions that can be found explicitly are precisely those that can be thought of as true superpotentials. If we are interested in flows between two fixed points of which only one (typically the UV one) appears as an extremum of the known superpotential, we cannot use the first order equations for this purpose and must revert to the Lagrangian system. In this case, it is impossible to obtain an analytical solution and it is impossible to resolve the vev/deformation ambiguity by asymptotically expanding it near the UV fixed point. How can one decide then which of these two cases is realized? Also, does the fact that the known generating function cannot be used to connect two fixed points mean that it is useless in connection with the RG flow? Or, if it can be used, how can the same boundary operator induce different flows?

These questions have been addressed in above cited literature and a coherent picture has emerged. So far, most of the attention has been focused on the case of various gauged supergravities in $`d=5`$, which are, of course, the ones most relevant to four dimensional field theories. We will address and solve these problems very explicitly for a particularly simple example – $`𝒩=1`$ $`d=7`$ gauged supergravity . This example has all the features we want to study and its simple field content allows for a clear-cut solution777The case of $`𝒩=1`$ $`d=7`$ gauged supergravity has been recently discussed in , where some comments in the direction of the results of this paper have been made.. By presenting a thorough and explicit solution of the problem, we hope to contribute in clarifying some points that might have remained obscure from the previous discussions.

The status of $`𝒩=1`$ $`d=7`$ gauged supergravity can be summarized as follows: First of all, there is only one scalar field $`\varphi `$ in the bulk and its potential has two extrema (see figure 1), a maximum at $`\varphi =0`$ corresponding to a supersymmetric UV theory and a minimum at888In appropriate units to be specified later. $`\varphi =\mathrm{log}2/\sqrt{5}`$, corresponding to a non-supersymmetric but nevertheless stable IR theory. The “tachyonic” excitation near the UV point has a mass $`m`$ given, in units of the AdS radius $`r`$, by $`m^2r^2=8`$. The boundary operator corresponding to $`\varphi `$ is $`𝒪_\varphi =\mathrm{\Phi }^2`$, where $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is a scalar in the tensor multiplet of the $`d=6`$ CFT or, better, its still unknown non-Abelian generalization. The conformal dimension of $`𝒪_\varphi `$ is $`\mathrm{\Delta }=4`$. The other possibility ($`\mathrm{\Delta }=2`$) is ruled out by looking at the table 1 of  for the multiplets of extended ($`𝒩=2`$) supersymmetry and figure 2 in . In fact, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=2`$ corresponds to the singleton field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ itself.

Deforming the UV theory ($`\varphi =0`$) by the addition of $`\varphi 𝒪_\varphi `$ to the fixed point Lagrangian induces an RG flow that ends at the non-supersymmetric IR conformal fixed point. In this case the generating function cannot be obtained explicitly but it can be computed numerically and shown to have the correct behavior at both ends – it corresponds to a particular one among the 1-parameter family of solutions of the Hamilton-Jacobi equation. This is the only solution in which the field $`\varphi `$ is allowed to acquire negative values. All other such solutions correspond to negative vev’s for $`𝒪_\varphi `$ and should be ruled out, in tune with the fact that, when evaluated on solutions that are running away to $`\mathrm{}`$, the potential is not bounded from above and the metric singularity at the runaway point is that of a naked time-like nature .

It turns out that the only solution to the Hamilton-Jacobi equation that has an extremum and is analytic at $`\varphi =0`$ is the superpotential. The superpotential can be used to study new supersymmetric vacua of the theory, for which $`𝒪_\varphi >0`$, by studying runaway solutions in which $`\varphi +\mathrm{}`$. There is also a continuum set of solutions, still with $`\varphi +\mathrm{}`$, describing what we believe are consistent non-supersymmetric vacua.

Towards the end of the paper we will turn to the more complicated case of compactification of $`d=11`$ supergravity  on “squashed” manifolds ($`\stackrel{~}{S}^7`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{N}(1,1)`$) and comment on some particular features of the models, complementing the discussion in .

In , the interesting question was raised of whether there exist trajectories connecting the squashed solutions with the corresponding unsquashed manifolds. The situation is similar to the well-studied case of gauged $`d=5`$ supergravity, but there is a crucial difference: In $`d=5`$ supergravity, the analog particle rolls from a saddle point to a minimum of the (inverted) potential, whereas here it should roll from a maximum to a saddle point, clearly a more unstable situation. If the RG equations where truly first order, one could argue from general theorems that there must still be a critical line connecting the points. However, the equations expressed in terms of the potential are second order and there is no guarantee that such a solution will survive. In fact, we have reasons to believe that such a flow does not exist, although more work is required to fully establish or refute this belief.

As far as the squashed solutions are concerned, one is able to find an explicit solution999The explicit generating function has no fixed point at the unsquashed vacuum (or else a solution connecting the two would exist). to the Hamilton-Jacobi equation. It turns out that this corresponds to giving a vev to the squashing operator, thus breaking conformal invariance. Given the simple form of the generating function and the collected experience with similar models, it is tempting to conjecture that such a solution is in fact supersymmetric, although here we are working beyond the gauged supergravity truncation and considering fields from the higher levels of the Kaluza-Klein spectrum.

## 2 $`𝒩=1`$ $`d=7`$ gauged supergravity

The field content, Lagrangian and supersymmetry transformations for $`𝒩=1`$ $`d=7`$ gauged supergravity can be found in . For our purposes, we set all fields to zero except for the metric and the scalar $`\varphi `$. The action is

$$S=d^7x\sqrt{g}\left(\frac{1}{2}R\frac{1}{2}(\varphi )^2V(\varphi )\right).$$
(1)
The scalar potential is chosen to be101010In its full generality, the potential depends on two arbitrary constants $`h`$ and $`g`$ and it displays two minima as long as $`h/g>0`$ (c.f.r. ). One combination of $`h`$ and $`g`$ is eliminated by shifting $`\varphi `$ and the remaining one is an irrelevant overall multiplicative constant in front of the potential.

$$V(\varphi )=\frac{1}{4}e^{8\varphi /\sqrt{5}}2e^{3\varphi /\sqrt{5}}2e^{+2\varphi /\sqrt{5}}.$$
(2)
A plot of $`V(\varphi )`$ is shown in figure 1. There is a supersymmetric UV fixed point at $`\varphi =0`$ and a stable non-supersymmetric IR one at $`\varphi =\mathrm{log}2/\sqrt{5}`$.

The Lagrangian equations of motion following from (1), with the standard domain-wall ansatz

$$ds^2=dy^2+e^{2A(y)}\eta _{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu ,\text{and}\varphi =\varphi (y)$$
(3)
can be derived by the following action for a mechanical system

$$S=𝑑ye^{6A}\left(15\dot{A}^2\frac{1}{2}\dot{\varphi }^2V(\varphi )\right).$$
(4)
When supplemented by the zero energy constraint, the equations read 111111The primes denote the derivative with respect to $`\varphi `$ and the dots the derivative with respect to $`y`$.

$`\ddot{\varphi }+6\dot{A}\dot{\varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`V^{}(\varphi )`$ (5)
$`5\ddot{A}+15\dot{A}^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\dot{\varphi }^2`$ $`=`$ $`V(\varphi )`$ (6)
$`15\dot{A}^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\dot{\varphi }^2`$ $`=`$ $`V(\varphi ).`$ (7)
Equation (6) can be easily shown to follow from (5) and (7).

Equivalently, one can consider the equation for Hamilton’s characteristic function $`F(A,\varphi ,c)`$ generating the canonical transformations to the cyclic coordinates121212There is only one constant, $`c`$, because the other conjugate variable is set to zero by (7).

$$\frac{1}{60}\left(\frac{F}{A}\right)^2\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{F}{\varphi }\right)^2+e^{12A}V=0.$$
(8)
By substituting the ansatz $`F(A,\varphi ,c)=e^{6A}W(\varphi ,c)`$ into (8) the equation becomes the same as the defining equation for the superpotential. Altogether, expressing the canonical transformation in terms of $`W`$ we end up with the first order system of Hamilton-Jacobi equations

$`\dot{\varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`W^{}`$ (9)
$`\dot{A}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{5}}W`$ (10)
$`V`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}W_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{5}}W^2.`$ (11)
Equation (11) is obeyed by the superpotential of the theory but it also admits a continuum of solutions, parameterized by $`c`$, that have nothing to do with supersymmetry. If one wants to recover all the solutions to the Lagrangian equations this way, one needs to consider all possible solutions to (11).

Particularly confusing is the fact that there are different solutions to (11) that have an extremum at $`\varphi =0`$. One solution, $`W_{\mathrm{susy}}`$, can be easily found by inspection and identified with the superpotential 131313This is defined up to an overall unimportant sign.:

$$W_{\mathrm{susy}}=2e^{\varphi /\sqrt{5}}\frac{1}{2}e^{4\varphi /\sqrt{5}}.$$
(12)
The flow between the two fixed points is generated by another solution, $`W_{\mathrm{ir}}`$, not supersymmetric and not analytic at $`\varphi =0`$ that can only be found numerically. The two functions are plotted for comparison in figure 2.

The function $`W_{\mathrm{ir}}`$ is rather tricky to find directly from (11) but it can be constructed a posteriori once the solution to the Lagrangian system (5), (6), (7) has been found numerically. Such a solution for $`\varphi _{\mathrm{ir}}`$ is presented in figure 3 and can be easily seen to interpolate between the UV and IR fixed points.

In fact, once the solution $`\varphi _{\mathrm{ir}}`$ is found, $`W_{\mathrm{ir}}`$ can be defined as

$`W_{\mathrm{ir}}(z)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{log}2/\sqrt{5}}^z}𝑑w\dot{\varphi }_{\mathrm{ir}}\left(\varphi _{\mathrm{ir}}^1(w)\right){\displaystyle \frac{5}{2^{1/5}\sqrt{3}}}`$ (13)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\varphi _{\mathrm{ir}}^1(z)}}𝑑y\dot{\varphi }_{\mathrm{ir}}(y)^2{\displaystyle \frac{5}{2^{1/5}\sqrt{3}}}.`$
The constant in (13) is chosen to agree with (11) at the IR point. It is interesting to analyze the behaviors of $`W_{\mathrm{susy}}`$ and $`W_{\mathrm{ir}}`$ near the origin. Obviously, $`W_{\mathrm{susy}}`$ is analytic and

$$W_{\mathrm{susy}}(0)=\frac{5}{2},W_{\mathrm{susy}}^{}(0)=0,W_{\mathrm{susy}}^{\prime \prime }(0)=2,W_{\mathrm{susy}}^{\prime \prime \prime }(0)=\frac{6}{\sqrt{5}},$$
(14)
whereas $`W_{\mathrm{ir}}`$ is not analytic, since

$$W_{\mathrm{ir}}(0)=\frac{5}{2},W_{\mathrm{ir}}^{}(0)=0,W_{\mathrm{ir}}^{\prime \prime }(0)=1,W_{\mathrm{ir}}^{\prime \prime \prime }(0)=\mathrm{}.$$
(15)
The two solutions $`W_{\mathrm{susy}}`$ and $`W_{\mathrm{ir}}`$ act as boundaries for a continuum set of solutions that lay between them, all of which have the same behavior as (15) 141414There are also solutions with only an extremum at the IR point which we do not consider ..

Since the second derivative of $`W`$ determines whether the behavior of $`\varphi `$ at $`y+\mathrm{}`$ is square-integrable or not, we see that $`W_{\mathrm{ir}}`$ gives rise to a non-square-integrable behavior, thus corresponding to deforming the fixed point Lagrangian by $`𝒪_\varphi `$.

In fact none of the other solutions (including the superpotential) is physically acceptable in the region $`\varphi <0`$ because they would correspond to giving a negative vev to $`𝒪_\varphi `$, a manifestly positive operator. If we write the asymptotics of $`\varphi `$ as151515For simplicity we do not write the polynomial corrections. Also recall that $`r^2=15/V(0)=4`$

$$\varphi Ae^{2y/r}+Be^{4y/r}$$
(16)
the above analysis shows that $`A=0`$ for $`W_{\mathrm{susy}}`$ and non-zero for the others. This is shown in figure 4 for the particularly interesting case where the generating function is $`W_{\mathrm{ir}}`$. If we take the case of $`W_{\mathrm{susy}}`$, so that the vev becomes the leading term, we get $`B<0`$, since we are studying the region $`\varphi <0`$. The term $`B`$ should still remain negative by continuity as we use generating functions laying between $`W_{\mathrm{susy}}`$ and $`W_{\mathrm{ir}}`$ and it will reach zero at $`W_{\mathrm{ir}}`$, precisely as $`A`$ reaches zero at the opposite end ($`W_{\mathrm{susy}}`$). $`B`$ corresponds to a vev for $`𝒪_\varphi `$ and therefore a negative value must be excluded. It would be nice to check numerically that our picture is correct but it is rather difficult to isolate the sub-leading term when $`A0`$.

Since the leading exponential behavior for all generating functions is known explicitly, we can be more precise and analyze the differences between positive and negative $`\varphi `$. From (9) and (10), following  and doing the asymptotics for large $`|\varphi |`$, one can easily see that the metric has the following behavior, (shifting the singularity to $`y=0`$)

$`\varphi >0:ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`y^2\eta _{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu +dy^2`$ (17)
$`\varphi <0:ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`y^{1/8}\eta _{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu +dy^2.`$ (18)
Solution (18) corresponds to a naked time-like singularity and our analysis says that it should be excluded. On the other hand, the runaway solution for $`\varphi >0`$ is acceptable and plotted in the neighborhood of the UV point in figure 5.

This solution corresponds to going to new non-supersymmetric vacua where $`𝒪_\varphi >0`$, which for the special case of the superpotential corresponds to a supersymmetric vacuum. The reason we have many acceptable generating functions for $`\varphi >0`$ is that they simply correspond to different vev’s (or vacua), in contrast to the $`\varphi <0`$ case.

## 3 Squashing deformations of $`d=4`$ supergravity

The final issue we discuss is the behavior of $`𝒩=1`$, $`d=3`$ superconformal field theories obtained from solutions of $`d=11`$ supergravity  on squashed seven-manifolds. These examples are of interest because they involve fields from higher levels of the Kaluza-Klein tower. They were recently considered in  – we would like to make a few remarks complementing that analysis.

The two main examples of manifolds allowing for a squashed solution are the seven-sphere and the manifold $`N(1,1)`$ . Squashed metrics are Einstein metrics, obtained by stretching the original one in some directions. $`N(1,1)`$ is a particular instance of a class of seven-dimensional Einstein manifolds named $`N(p,q)`$ , which has the peculiarity of preserving $`𝒩=3`$ supersymmetries, whereas its squashed version has $`𝒩=0`$.161616However, the orientation-reversed or “skew-whiffed” solution is supersymmetric, with $`𝒩=1`$ . By the AdS/CFT correspondence all these solutions ought to correspond to some conformal limits of three-dimensional QFT representing the degrees of freedom living on M2-branes placed at the apex of the cone over the compactification manifolds .

By the standard procedure, one reads off the global symmetries (“flavor” and R-symmetry) from the isometries of the corresponding solution. Once an appropriate guess for the gauge group is made, it is possible to get a detailed mapping between the operators and the fields of the KK spectrum, based on matching supersymmetry representations. The theory dual to $`S^7`$ is a 3 dimensional $`𝒩=8`$ CFT with $`SO(8)`$ R-symmetry group, while $`N(1,1)`$ gives rise to a CFT with $`SU(3)\times SU(2)`$ global symmetries and supercharges transforming in the 3 of $`SU(2)`$. Moreover, the situation is more difficult for squashed solutions. Having $`𝒩=1`$ in three dimensions there is no R-symmetry and the usual procedure does not apply straightforwardly. The case of $`N(1,1)`$ is particularly puzzling as squashed and unsquashed solutions share the same global symmetries.

To study the possibility of having domain-wall solutions interpolating between such theories one considers a truncation of the Kaluza-Klein spectrum and derives an effective four-dimensional action for the non-zero fields. The potential for the sphere is known from the work of  in terms of two scalars $`u`$ and $`v`$ appearing in the eleven dimensional metric as

$$ds^2=e^{7u}ds^2(AdS_4)+e^{2u+3v}ds^2(\mathrm{base})+e^{2u4v}ds^2(\mathrm{fibre}),$$
(19)
where the seven-sphere is thought of as a $`S^3`$ fibration over the base $`S^4`$. The potential for the squashed $`N(1,1)`$ has been given in terms of four scalars in  but for our purposes it is sufficient to repeat the computation of  using (19) where now the base manifold is $`CP^2`$ and the fiber is $`RP^3`$, thus obtaining a potential also dependent only on two scalars. In both cases the potential can be written as

$$V(u,v)=\lambda e^{9u}\left(\alpha e^{4v}e^{3v}\frac{1}{32\alpha }e^{10v}\right)+2Q^2e^{21u},$$
(20)
where $`Q`$ is the Page charge and, for the sphere, $`\alpha =1/8`$ and $`\lambda =48`$, whereas, for $`N(1,1)`$, we have $`\alpha =1/16`$ and $`\lambda =24`$. Amusingly, all the physical quantities, such as the conformal dimensions for the operators, turn out to be independent of $`\alpha `$ and $`\lambda `$.

The potential (20) has two fixed points but the field $`u`$ always describes a non-renormalizable (irrelevant) operator. From the equivalent mechanical problem, the flow between these two points would have to connect a maximum of $`V`$ to a saddle point of $`V`$, clearly an unstable situation – contrary to the situation occurring for some flows in $`d=5`$ gauged supergravity, where the “particle” rolls along a valley from a saddle point to a minimum.

As mentioned in the introduction, if the RG equations where truly first order, one could argue from general theorems that there must still be a critical line connecting the points. However, the equations expressed in terms of the potential are second order and the existence of this solution is not guaranteed in this case. After some numerical tests we now believe that there is no such flow.

The potential (20) has another peculiar property: It is possible to find explicitly one generating function $`W`$ that has one critical point at the squashed solution. The function is171717We take the case of the sphere for concreteness. For the $`N(1,1)`$ case the factor 3 in front of $`e^{2v}`$ is changed to 3/2.

$$W(u,v)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{8}}e^{\frac{9}{2}u}\left(3e^{2v}+6e^{5v}|Q|e^{6u}\right),$$
(21)
which is a solution to

$$V=\frac{16}{63}(_uW)^2+\frac{8}{21}(_vW)^212W^2.$$
(22)
At first, it seems rather counterintuitive that the point with less supersymmetries should appear as an extremum, but we must remember that we are not dealing with a gauged supergravity, where only low-lying KK excitations are included. Still, it is tempting to believe that the solution associated with $`W`$ describes different supersymmetric vacua of the theory. As a check one can show, expanding $`W`$ near its critical point, that the solution corresponds to the operator associated to $`v`$ getting a vev – more specifically $`v\mathrm{exp}(5y/3r)`$. There is a choice between a theory in which the conformal dimension of the operator is $`\mathrm{\Delta }=5/3`$ or $`\mathrm{\Delta }=4/3`$, which is also allowed . Finally, one finds that the runaway solution also satisfies the criterion  of boundness from above of the potential. Hopefully, further investigations will reveal if even these models consistently describe holographic RG flows.

## 4 Acknowledgments

We wish thank U. Boscain, U. Gran, J. Kalkkinen and A. Tomasiello for useful discussions. D.M. wishes to thank Chalmers University of Göteborg for financial support and kind hospitality when this work was initiated, and acknowledges partial support from EU TMR program CT960045.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

This review contains four different topics on heavy baryon decays. First we discuss some recent theoretical determinations of the quasielastic $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ form factor in HQET where there are many different results in the literature. The quasielastic $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ form factor has also been calculated in the Relativistic Three Quark Model (RTQM) which is an all-encompassing tool for the description of exclusive heavy baryon decays. We briefly describe the RTQM model and discuss various applications of the RTQM. As concerns QCD sum rules we describe some recent three-loop results on the finite mass baryon current-current correlator at $`𝒪(\alpha _s)`$ which is a new result important for QCD sum rule calculations. Finally we discuss the semi-inclusive decays $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_bX_c+D_s^{()}`$ where $`𝒪(\alpha _s)`$ and $`O(1/m_b^2)`$ have been recently calculated. This is an important mode for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b`$-decays with an expected branching ratio of $`10\%`$.

## 2 The quasielastic $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ form factor

There exist many different results on the the quasielastic $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ form factor in the literature. The predicted slope values of the form factor range from $`\rho ^2=0.33`$ to $`\rho ^2=2.35`$. In the simplest approach one takes a heavy quark – light diquark model and describes the transition by a one-loop Feynman diagram . One takes $`M_Q=m_Q`$ and local point coupling factors $`g_1`$ and $`g_2`$ for the quark-diquark-baryon vertices whose strengths are fixed by the compositeness condition. The compositeness condition is nothing but the field theoretic equivalent of the familiar quantum mechanical concept of wave function normalization. In the heavy quark limit the result of such a calculation is given by the form factor $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\omega )=(\omega ^21)^{1/2}\mathrm{ln}(\omega +\sqrt{\omega ^21})`$ which is familiar from the $`\omega `$-dependent renormalization of the heavy quark current. An expansion in terms of powers of $`(\omega 1)`$ shows that the form factor is correctly normalized at the zero recoil point $`\omega =1`$, has a slope of $`\rho ^2=1/3`$ and a convexity of $`c=2/15`$. The form factor $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\omega )`$ is rather flat when e.g. compared to the heavy meson form factor where experimentally one finds slope values of $`1`$. $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\omega )`$ lies within the inclusive HQET sum rule bounds derived by Chiang  but must nevertheless be discarded since it oversaturates the semileptonic inclusive rate $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_bX_c+l^{}+\overline{\nu }_l`$ as recently shown in .

Improvements on this simplest approach lead one to the Relativistic Three Quark Model (RTQM) . In the improvements one incorporates binding effects by replacing $`M_Q=m_Q`$ by $`M_Q=m_Q+\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$. The vertex is softened through introduction of a nonlocal vertex and one introduces a true three-quark structure by replacing the $`(ud)`$-diquark by single $`u`$, $`d`$ quarks.

## 3 The Relativistic Three Quark Model

According to the changes mentioned above the RTQM treats the decay $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b\mathrm{\Lambda }_c+W_{\mathrm{off}\mathrm{shell}}^{}`$ in terms of a two-loop Feynman diagram with nonlocal vertices including binding effects. The result is that the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ form factor becomes steeper. Depending on the choice of spin vertex structure for the heavy baryons the slope increases from the aforementioned $`\rho ^2=1/3`$ to $`\rho ^2=0.75÷1.35`$ depending on the choice of spin vertex structure to be discussed later on.

The RTQM is an all-encompassing and versatile tool for the description of heavy baryon decays in terms of a Feynman diagram description. The number of parameters associated with the nonlocality of the vertices, the binding effects and the values of the constituent quark masses is reasonably small and their values lie within common expectations. Many of the parameters are already fixed from light baryon decays where the RTQM also applies. For the loop integrations one uses the $`\alpha `$-parametrization in its exponential form. This introduces $`n`$ $`\alpha `$-parameters $`\alpha _1,\mathrm{},\alpha _n`$ for $`n`$ propagators and consequently $`n`$ integrations. One introduces a Laplace transform to facilitate the vertex form factor integration which is left to the very end. The exponential $`\alpha `$-parametrization allows one to do the tensor loop integrals directly through differentiation, i.e. without use of the Passarino-Veltman expansion. One transforms to spherical type variables which leaves one with one radial type integration and $`(n1)`$ angular type integrations. All $`(n+1)`$ numerical integrations including the Laplace transform can be done with ease. In fact the spherical integrations can also be done analytically but the ease of the numerical integration does not warrant this effort. We shall now discuss several applications of the RTQM to heavy baryon decays.

The dependence of the Isgur-Wise function on the choice of the vertex spin structure for the heavy baryons was investigated in . For the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_Q`$-type baryons both the effective couplings

$$J_{\mathrm{\Lambda }_Q}^1=\overline{\psi }_Q\psi _{[u}^TC\gamma _5\psi _{d]}J_{\mathrm{\Lambda }_Q}^2=\psi _Q\psi _{[u}^TC\gamma _5v/\psi _{d]}$$
(1)
correctly describe the coupling of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_Q`$ to a heavy on-shell quark and two light off-shell quarks in the limit of Heavy Quark Symmetry (HQS). When inserted into the relevant two-loop diagram both coupling structures reproduce the required leading order HQET form factor structure including the unit normalization at zero recoil. However, one finds that the slope of the Isgur-Wise function depends on the choice of vertex structure. For the three choices $`J_{\mathrm{\Lambda }_Q}^1`$, $`\frac{1}{2}(J_{\mathrm{\Lambda }_Q}^1+J_{\mathrm{\Lambda }_Q}^2)`$ and $`J_{\mathrm{\Lambda }_Q}^2`$ one finds slope values of $`\rho ^2=1.35`$, $`1.05`$ and $`0.75`$. The fact that $`\rho ^2(J_{\mathrm{\Lambda }_Q}^1)>\rho ^2(J_{\mathrm{\Lambda }_Q}^2)`$ agrees with the sum rule analysis of  although the difference in slope values in  is not as large. Note that taking the geometric mean of the two currents leads to a constituent type vertex structure where the projector $`(v/+1)/2`$ projects onto the large components of the light quark fields.

Finite mass effects in heavy $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{Q_1}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{Q_2}`$ transitions were analyzed in  by replacing the heavy quark propagators in the Feynman diagrams by the full propagator. This was effected by the replacement

$$\frac{i}{lv+\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\frac{v/+1}{2}\frac{i(P/+/l+m_Q)}{(P+l)^2m_Q^2}$$
(2)
where $`(P+l)`$ is the momentum of the heavy quark and $`l`$ is a loop momentum. For $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ the rate is decreased by $`9.3\%`$ in qualitative agreement with the findings of . The decrease was found to be even larger for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c\mathrm{\Lambda }_s`$ where the strange quark was treated as a heavy quark in the reference rate for the sake of comparison. It is clear that an expansion of the full propagator in terms of powers of $`1/m_Q`$ would allow one to systematically explore higher order $`1/m_Q`$-effects in these transitions as e.g. in the zero recoil normalization of the relevant zero recoil $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{Q_1}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{Q_2}`$ form factor.

In  the RTQM was used to calculate exclusive nonleptonic decays of heavy baryons. There are so-called factorizing and nonfactorizing contributions to these decays. The nonfactorizing contributions had never been calculated before. In the Feynman diagram approach they involve a genuine three-loop calculation which was done in . As a sample result one finds that in the nonleptonic decays $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b\mathrm{\Lambda }_c+\pi ^{}`$ the nonfactorizing contributions amount to $`20\%`$ and $`28\%`$ in the parity violating and parity conserving amplitudes, repectively, with an ensuing reduction in rate of $`40\%`$. The nonfactorizing contributions are therefore not negligible. A multitude of exclusive nonleptonic decays have been calculated within the RTQM model involving $`(\overline{s}c)(\overline{u}d)`$, $`(\overline{b}c)(\overline{u}d)`$ and $`(\overline{b}c)(\overline{c}s)`$ transitions .

The RTQM model is also well suited for heavy flavour-conserving one-pion and one-photon transitions between heavy baryons. The one-pion transitions are described by two-loop diagrams where the pion couples to a single light quark line. The $`1/f_\pi `$ coupling of chiral perturbation theory effectively appears through the quark level Goldberger-Treiman relation $`g_\pi =2m_q/f_\pi `$. Many one-pion transitions have been calculated including transitions from excited states . The results are remarkably close to the results of using the constituent quark model  for the light quarks even though the light quarks are fully off-shell in the RTQM model.

For one-photon transitions the transverse on-shell photon couples only to the light quarks in the leading order of the heavy quark expansion with a coupling strength given by the light quark charge. In addition one has to include contact graphs to assure gauge invariance of the one-photon transitions. These are generated according to the path integral formalism of Mandelstam. Again the results of the RTQM model  are remarkably close to the constituent quark model calculation . The relation of the RTQM description of one-photon transitions to the chiral approach remains to be explored, in particular to the recent calculation of  which contains also chiral loops.

What we have discussed so far are some basic applications of the RTQM in the heavy baryon sector. Further work is in progress on the decays of double heavy baryons, on magnetic moments of heavy baryons and on heavy flavour-conserving nonleptonic charm and bottom baryon decays.

## 4 Finite mass baryonic current-current correlator at $`𝒪(\alpha _s)`$

The calculation of the spectral density associated with the baryonic current-current correlator is important for QCD sum rule applications. We want to report on some advances we have made in the calculation of the $`𝒪(\alpha _s)`$ radiative corrections to the spectral density with one finite mass quark mass and two zero quark masses . The calculation involves the evaluation of two-scale three-loop Feynman diagrams which only became possible due to recent technical advances  in three-loop technology. Taking the appropiate limits we recover previous results derived for the zero mass case  and for the infinite mass case . In the mesonic case the corresponding calculation has been done some time ago showing that radiative corrections to the spectral density can become quite important .

The basic object of study is the vacuum expectation value of the time-ordered product of two baryonic currents $`<TJ(x)J(0)>`$. In spinor space its Fourier transform is expanded along the spinor matrix structures $`q/`$ and $`m`$ with coefficients $`\pi _q(q^2)`$ and $`\pi _m(q^2)`$. We concentrate on the invariant $`\pi _m(q^2)`$ which has associated with it a spectral density $`\rho _m(s)`$ for which we shall present two- and three-loop results. Using the simplest possible current $`J=\mathrm{\Psi }(u^TCd)`$ and writing

$$\rho _m(s)=\frac{1}{128\pi ^4}s^2\left\{\rho _0(s)\left(1+\frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{\mu ^2}{m^2}\right)\right)+\frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }\rho _1(s)\right\}$$
(3)
we obtain the Born term two-loop contribution $`\rho _0(q^2)=1+9z9z^2z^3+6z(1+z)\mathrm{ln}z`$ where $`z=m^2/q^2`$. In the $`\overline{\text{MS}}`$ scheme the radiative three-loop contribution is given by

$`\rho _1(s)=9+{\displaystyle \frac{665}{9}}z{\displaystyle \frac{665}{9}}z^29z^3\left({\displaystyle \frac{58}{9}}+42z42z^2{\displaystyle \frac{58}{9}}z^3\right)\mathrm{ln}(1z)`$ (4)
$`+\left(2+{\displaystyle \frac{154}{3}}z{\displaystyle \frac{22}{3}}z^2{\displaystyle \frac{58}{9}}z^3\right)\mathrm{ln}z+4\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}+3z3z^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}z^3\right)\mathrm{ln}(1z)\mathrm{ln}z`$
$`+12z\left(2+3z+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{9}}z^2\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{ln}^2z\zeta (2)\right)+4\left({\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}+12z+3z^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}z^3\right)\mathrm{Li}_2(z)`$
$`+24z(1+z)\left(\mathrm{Li}_3(z)\zeta (3){\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\mathrm{Li}_2(z)\mathrm{ln}z\right)`$
Writing $`q^2=(m+E)^2`$ we can perform a threshold expansion of the spectral density in terms of powers of $`E/m`$. We write the leading order result in a factorized form in order to facilitate comparison with HQET. One has

$`m\rho _m`$ $`\stackrel{m\mathrm{}}{=}`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{128\pi ^4}}E^5\{1+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{\mu ^2}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}})\}^2\times `$ (5)
$`\times \left\{1+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }}\left(4\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu }{2E}}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{45}}\left(10\pi ^2+273\right)\right)\right\}.`$
The first bracket is the square of the appropiate HQET matching coefficient $`C(m/\mu ,\alpha _s)`$ first derived in  and the second bracket is the appropiate result for the leading order HQET spectral density $`\rho ^{\mathrm{HQET}}(E,\mu )`$ first derived in . We have checked that the zero mass limit of the general spectral density reproduces the result of . Work is in progress on the momentum spectral density $`\rho _q(s)`$ and on correlators of baryonic currents with arbitrary spin structure and on sum rule applications of the spectral densities.

## 5 The semi-inclusive decay $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_bX_c+D_s^{()}`$

Following the analysis of the semi-inclusive B-meson decays $`\overline{B}X_c+D_s^{()}`$ in  we looked at the corresponding semi-inclusive $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b`$-decays. The $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b`$ decays are potentially more interesting because of the possibility to observe $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b`$ polarization effects in this decay. At the leading order of $`\alpha _s`$ and the heavy quark mass expansion one expects branching ratios of $`BR(\mathrm{\Lambda }_bX_c+D_s^{})=3.2\%`$ and $`BR(\mathrm{\Lambda }_bX_c+D_s^{})=(4.4(L)+2.4(T))\%`$ where we have separately listed the longitudinal ($`L`$) and transverse component ($`T`$) of the spin 1 $`D_s^{}`$. The two components can be separately measured by an angular analysis of the subsequent decays $`D_s^{}D_s^{}+\gamma `$ and $`D_s^{}D_s^{}+\pi ^0`$. The same holds true for the measurement of polarization effects  which will not be discussed here.

In  we calculated the perturbative $`𝒪(\alpha _s)`$ and the nonperturbative corrections to these decays using the factorization hypothesis. Numerically one finds:

$`\mathrm{\Lambda }_bX_c+D_s^{}:\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_S`$ $`=`$ $`(10.0960.013)`$
$`\mathrm{\Lambda }_bX_c+D_s^{}:\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_L`$ $`=`$ $`0.65(10.1100.034)`$
$`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_T`$ $`=`$ $`0.35(10.108+0.026)`$
$`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{L+T}`$ $`=`$ $`(10.0960.009).`$ (6)
In order to clearly exhibit the percentage changes the rates have been normalized to their respective Born term rates. The second and third figures in the round brackets of Eq.(6) refer to the perturbative $`𝒪(\alpha _s)`$ corrections and the nonperturbative kinetic energy correction, respectively. The perturbative corrections are negative and quite uniform. They amount to $`10\%`$. The nonperturbative corrections range from 0.9% to 3.4% with differing signs. The longitudinal mode dominates the rate into $`D_s^{}`$’s. The $`L/T`$ rate ratio $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_L/\mathrm{\Gamma }_T`$ decreases by 6.8% from 1.86 to 1.73 after applying the perturbative and nonperturbative corrections.

The corresponding semi-inclusive $`bu`$ decays $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_bX_u+D_s^{()}`$ are suppressed due to the smallness of $`V_{bu}`$. They are nevertheless of interest for the analysis of so-called wrong sign $`D_s^{()}`$’s . Numerically one finds

$`\mathrm{\Lambda }_bX_u+D_s^{}:\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_S`$ $`=`$ $`(10.169\mathrm{0..013})`$
$`\mathrm{\Lambda }_bX_u+D_s^{}:\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_L`$ $`=`$ $`0.73(10.1780.029)`$
$`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_T`$ $`=`$ $`0.27(10.115+0.030)`$
$`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{L+T}`$ $`=`$ $`(10.1610.001).`$ (7)
The dominance of the longitudinal mode in the decay $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_bX_u+D_s^{}`$ is now more pronounced. Also the radiative corrections are no longer uniform leading to a substantial 13.3% change in the $`L/T`$ rate ratio due to the perturbative and nonperturbative corrections. It would be interesting to study these semi-inclusive $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b`$ decay modes including the $`L/T`$ composition of the $`D_s^{}`$’s at future colliders.