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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The standard model is a gauge theory based on the structure group SU(3) $`\times `$ SU(2) $`\times `$ U(1) . The electroweak gauge symmetry is spontaneously broken by means of the Higgs mechanism . This mechanism requires the inclusion in the model of a fundamental scalar field which is charged under U(1) and is in the fundamental representation of SU(2). It is often argued that the standard model with the Higgs mechanism as a mechanism for gauge symmetry breaking cannot be a theory valid over a wide range of energies because the squared mass of a scalar field receives corrections that are quadratic divergent if a naive cutoff is used to regularize the model. In the standard model one obtains

$`m_H^2m_{H}^{0}{}_{}{}^{2}+{\displaystyle \frac{3g^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{32\pi ^2m_W^2}}\left(m_H^2+2m_W^2+m_Z^24{\displaystyle \underset{f}{}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_f}{3}}\right)m_f^2\right)`$ (1)
in the one loop approximation . The mass term of the Higgs boson is denoted by $`m_H`$, that of the W-boson by $`m_W`$, that of the Z-boson by $`m_Z`$ and that of the top-quark is denoted by $`m_t`$. Finally $`n_f`$ is the number of flavors propagating in the loop and $`g`$ is the SU(2) gauge coupling constant. If the cutoff is large, e.g. of the order of a possible grand unification scale $`10^{16}`$ GeV, it requires an unnatural adjustment between the bare mass $`m_H^0`$ of the scalar field and the “corrections” to insure a physical Higgs mass in the 100 GeV region . This is known as the naturalness problem. It should nevertheless be noted that the standard model is renormalizable . Quadratic divergences can be absorbed in the parameters of the standard model in a way which is mathematically completely consistent.

An obvious solution to the naturalness problem is to avoid the Higgs mechanism and the inclusion of fundamental scalars in the model like in e.g. technicolor theories or top condensate models . Another approach is to embed the standard model into another more fundamental theory where quadratic divergences are either absent like in supersymmetric models  or small like in models with extra-dimensions  because in that case the fundamental scale of nature is assumed to be not much larger than the electroweak scale.

Recently another point of view has been revived. It had been proposed a long time ago , that the Higgs boson could be a pseudo-Goldstone boson. This idea has recently been revived in the form of the Little Higgs models . The Little Higgs models have been shown to possess an approximate symmetry that can protect the Higgs mass from radiative corrections if the cutoff is not too large i.e. 10 TeV. Unfortunately the simplest examples of that class of models do not automatically have a custodial symmetry and are thus potentially severely constrained by experiments .

Long before that, it had been speculated that a special value for the Higgs boson mass could cancel the quadratic divergences corrections to the Higgs boson mass . This leads to the so-called Veltman’s relation:

$`m_H^2=4m_t^22m_W^2m_Z^2.`$ (2)
But, even if this relation was fulfilled, i.e. if the Higgs boson mass was of the order of $`316`$ GeV, it does not hold beyond the one loop approximation. The consequences of a possible cancellation of the logarithmic divergent terms have been considered in . Note that there is no need to require an exact cancellation of the one loop quadratic divergences .

In this work we shall argue that the observation made by Veltman some 22 years ago can be revived in a modern framework. We shall present a class of models for which, as in the Little Higgs models case, we do not describe the high energy completion and we shall thus assume that our models have a cutoff in the 10 TeV region. The simplest way to do that is to assume that the standard model Higgs boson mass is of the order of 316 GeV and that this model has a cutoff of 10 TeV. We note that such a high mass for the Higgs boson seems to be in contradiction with fits based on electroweak precision measurements . Furthermore, in that case, there is no way to push the cutoff scale above the 10 TeV scale. Our basic observation is that if there is some new physics beyond the standard model with a new bosonic degree of freedom $`\varphi `$ that is coupled to the standard model in a minimal way i.e.

$`\alpha h^{}h\varphi ^{}\varphi ,`$ (3)
where $`h`$ is the standard model Higgs boson and $`\alpha `$ is a parameter of order one, then the Higgs boson mass can naturally be of the order of 100 GeV if the models have a cutoff of the order of 10 TeV. Furthermore, depending on the model under consideration, this cutoff scale can be pushed upwards. The naturalness problem is not solved by these models, but is only soften. It must be emphasized that these models are theoretically not as compelling as the Little Higgs models, because they do not have an approximate symmetry that protects the Higgs boson squared mass against radiative corrections but they have a custodial symmetry and are thus not constrained by experiments. These models are semi-natural in sense proposed by Veltman . A new boson that couples to the Higgs boson of the standard model according to (3) implies a correction to the Higgs boson squared mass given by:

$`m_H^2`$ $``$ $`m_{}^{0}{}_{H}{}^{2}+\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }_c^2`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{3g^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{32\pi ^2m_W^2}}\left(4v^2\lambda +2m_W^2+m_Z^24{\displaystyle \underset{f}{}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_f}{3}}\right)m_f^2\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{4\pi ^2}}\alpha ,`$
where $`\lambda `$ is the Higgs boson self-coupling, $`v=174`$ GeV the vacuum expectation value and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ is the scale associated with the new physics beyond the standard model. Note that depending on the model our definition of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ includes a potential mixing angle between the scales of the different scalar sectors. In the sequel we shall describe two classes of models that should be considered as low energy effective theories of an unknown high energy theory. If we introduce the operator (3) in the standard model, we potentially introduce a new naturalness problem. Because $`\varphi `$ is a bosonic degree of freedom, its squared mass will in general receive quadratic corrections. We have identified two classes of models where this problem is under control. The first class of models are models where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ is identical to the standard model electroweak scale, and where a symmetry implies that the corrections to the squared mass of the scalar field $`\varphi `$ are identical to those of the scalar fields $`h`$. The second class of models are models where the scale involving the second scalar field $`\varphi `$, i.e. its mass, is rather near to the cutoff scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. The corrections to its squared mass are thus small.

Clearly, if $`\alpha `$ is a positive parameter of the order of one, a cancellation, or partial cancellation, of the the quadratic corrections can take place and the Higgs boson mass can naturally be of the order of 100 GeV if the cutoff is of the order of 10 TeV. Note that the the two loop corrections are expected to be of the order of $`(\frac{1}{16\pi ^2})^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$ and are thus small if the cutoff is as low as 10 TeV. The corrections to the potential of the new scalar degree of freedom are model dependent and shall be discussed below for each model considered. Note also that if $`\alpha `$ is a negative parameter of order one and if $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c<\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, there is a negative contribution at tree level to the Higgs boson mass that can, in principle, reverse the sign of the Higgs boson squared mass and thus trigger the Higgs mechanism in the electroweak sector of the standard model. In that scenario we have to require that the new scale is lower than the cutoff scale to be certain that the low energy effective theory remains valid. Nevertheless, in that case, there is, in general, no cancellation of the quadratic divergences.

In the first section, we shall consider a model where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ is assumed to be equal to the scale of the electroweak interaction. In the second section we will describe a model where mass of the second scalar field is assumed to be near to the cutoff of the models. We then conclude.

## 2 A standard model replica

Let us consider a model based on the gauge group SU(3)$`_{\overline{C}}`$ $`\times `$ SU(2)$`_{\overline{L}}`$ $`\times `$ U(1)$`_{\overline{Y}}`$ $`\times `$ SU(3)C $`\times `$ SU(2)$`{}_{L}{}^{}\times `$ U(1)Y, where SU(3)$`_{\overline{C}}`$ $`\times `$ SU(2)$`_{\overline{L}}`$ $`\times `$ U(1)$`_{\overline{Y}}`$=Gn is the gauge group describing the physics beyond the standard model and SU(3)$`{}_{C}{}^{}\times `$ SU(2)$`{}_{L}{}^{}\times `$ U(1)Y=GSM is the standard model gauge group. Both SU(2) groups have the usual weak gauge coupling $`g`$ and both SU(3) groups have the usual strong coupling $`g_s`$. Furthermore, we assume also that both U(1) groups have the same usual gauge coupling $`g^{}`$. The number of fields of the model is thus doubled in comparison to the standard model (see table 1), and there is a discrete symmetry transforming the standard model fields (Higgs boson included) into the fields charged under Gn. The motivation to consider this model is that because of the discrete symmetry, the corrections to the masses of both scalar degrees of freedom are identical. Therefore only one relation has to be fulfilled to insure the naturalness of the model if the cutoff is assumed to be around 10 TeV. The Lagrangian of the model is given by

$`_{rep}=_{SM}+_n\alpha h^{}h\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\mathrm{\Phi }`$ (5)
where $`h`$ is the SU(2)L scalar doublet and $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is the SU(2)$`_{\overline{L}}`$ scalar doublet. This is the most generic, gauge invariant Lagrangian. $`_{SM}`$ is the standard model Lagrangian and $`_n`$ is the Lagrangian containing the new fields, it is obtained by applying the discrete symmetry mentioned above on $`_{SM}`$. Note that this model has a custodial symmetry and is thus not in contradiction with electroweak precision measurements. The potential of the model reads:

$`V(h,\mathrm{\Phi })`$ $`=`$ $`m_s^2h^{}h+m_s^2\varphi ^{}\varphi +\lambda (h^{}h)^2+\lambda (\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\mathrm{\Phi })^2+\alpha h^{}h\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\mathrm{\Phi }.`$ (6)
The vacuum expectation value of the scalar fields $`v`$ is given by:

$`v`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{m_s^2}{2\lambda +\alpha }}},`$ (7)
note that $`m_s^2<0`$, the potential is bounded from below if $`2\lambda >\alpha `$. The parameter $`m_s`$ receives the usual quadratic divergencies:

$`m_s^2`$ $``$ $`m_{}^{0}{}_{s}{}^{2}+\alpha v^2`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{3g^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{32\pi ^2m_W^2}}\left(4v^2\lambda +2m_W^2+m_Z^24{\displaystyle \underset{f}{}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_f}{3}}\right)m_f^2\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{4\pi ^2}}\alpha .`$
If we require the complete cancellation of the quadratic divergent corrections induced at one loop, we obtain the analog of Veltman’s condition:

$`\lambda +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\alpha ={\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{8m_W^2}}\left(4{\displaystyle \underset{f}{}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_f}{3}}\right)m_f^22m_W^2m_Z^2\right)0.86,`$ (9)
which insures the cancellation of the quadratic divergences induced by the one loop corrections.

Signatures

The operator $`h^{}h\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\mathrm{\Phi }`$ induces a mixing between the two scalar doublets. Let us denote the mass eigenstates by $`h_1`$ and $`h_2`$. One finds:

$`h_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}h^0{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\varphi ^0`$ (10)
$`h_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}h^0+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\varphi ^0,`$
i.e. the mixing is maximal. After this diagonalization procedure, $`h_1`$ and $`h_2`$ couple to both the fermions and their replicas. There is nevertheless no new source of neutral flavor changing. The replicas are only extremely weakly coupled to the standard model particles, the only possible interaction is mediated by the scalar bosons. In that sense the decays of the scalar bosons to replicas should be considered as missing energy decay modes. Therefore, the observable spectrum of the theory is the standard model with a further neutral scalar boson. The squared masses of the scalar bosons are given by

$`m_{h_1}^2`$ $`=`$ $`m_{}^{0}{}_{h}{}^{2}\alpha v^2=2(2\lambda \alpha )v^2`$ (11)
$`m_{h_2}^2`$ $`=`$ $`m_{}^{0}{}_{h}{}^{2}+3\alpha v^2=2(2\lambda +\alpha )v^2,`$
with $`v=174`$ GeV. Let us assume that the lightest Higgs boson has a mass $`m_{h_1}`$ of about 130 GeV and that the one loop quadratically divergent corrections cancel completely, one finds $`m_{h_2}=349`$ GeV. Note that the production and decay modes of these scalar bosons are quite different from the standard model case. At an electron positron collider the production rate is $`1/2`$ of that of the standard model because of the mixing between the two scalars reduces the coupling of each of the scalars to the SU(2)L gauge bosons by a factor $`1/\sqrt{2}`$. One has schematically $`\sigma (e^+e^{}HZ^{})\frac{1}{2}\sigma (e^+e^{}h_1/h_2Z^{})`$ where is it understood that the appropriate scalar mass has to be used in the formula. Similarly the couplings to fermions charged under GSM, i.e. the standard model fermions, is reduced by the same factor. This implies that the LEP limits for these scalar bosons are less stringent in this model. The lightest Higgs boson decays as in the standard model dominantly to $`b`$-quarks if its mass is around 100 GeV. The cross section is $`\sigma (e^+e^{}b\overline{b}Z^{})=\frac{1}{4}\sigma (e^+e^{}b\overline{b}Z^{})|_{SM}`$, and is thus much smaller than in the standard model. We have assumed that only the lightest Higgs boson contributes at a significant level. The cross section to missing energy, i.e. when the Higgs boson decays to the $`b`$-quark replicas, is equal in magnitude to the $`b`$-$`\overline{b}`$ decay mode: $`\sigma (e^+e^{}\text{missing energy}Z^{})=\sigma (e^+e^{}b\overline{b}Z^{})`$. The missing energy corresponds to a scalar of mass $`m_{h_1}`$. Notice that both scalars couple both to the standard model particles and to the replica particles. This implies that fifty percent of the scalar bosons should be missing energy decays. Note that the production at a hadron collider, where one of the main production mode for the Higgs boson is via a top quark triangle, will also be suppressed by a factor $`1/2`$ compared to the standard model expectation.

### 2.1 Elusive new physics

Let us consider the same model as described above but we shall now assume that the SU(2)$`_{\overline{L}}`$ gauge symmetry remains unbroken. The scalar potential is assumed to be:

$`V(h,\mathrm{\Phi })`$ $`=`$ $`m_s^2h^{}hm_s^2\varphi ^{}\varphi +\lambda (h^{}h)^2+\lambda (\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\mathrm{\Phi })^2+\alpha h^{}h\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\mathrm{\Phi },`$ (12)
the discrete symmetry is softly broken by the mass terms of the scalar fields. The vacuum expectation values are given by $`v_h=\sqrt{\frac{m_s^2}{2\lambda +\alpha }}`$ and $`v_\mathrm{\Phi }=0`$. This implies that there is no mixing between the two scalar fields.

The squared masses receive quadratically divergent corrections:

$`m_h^2`$ $``$ $`m_{}^{0}{}_{h}{}^{2}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{3g^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{32\pi ^2m_W^2}}\left(m_h^2+2m_W^2+m_Z^24{\displaystyle \underset{f}{}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_f}{3}}\right)m_f^2\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{4\pi ^2}}\alpha ,`$
where $`m_h`$ is the mass of the physical standard model Higgs boson $`h`$ and

$`m_\varphi ^2`$ $``$ $`m_{}^{0}{}_{s}{}^{2}+\alpha v^2`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{3\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{16\pi ^2}}\left(4\lambda +{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}g^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g^24{\displaystyle \underset{fc}{}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_{fc}}{3}}\right)\lambda _{fc}^2\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{4\pi ^2}}\alpha ,`$
where $`m_\varphi `$ is the mass of the copy of the standard model Higgs boson and $`\lambda _{fc}`$ are the Yukawa couplings, note that we have $`\lambda _{fc}=\lambda _f`$. Note that if we assume that the parameters of the second gauge group Gn are identical to those of GSM besides the sign of the mass of the scalar doublets there is only one relation that needs to be fulfilled:

$`\alpha ={\displaystyle \frac{3g^2}{8m_W^2}}\left(4{\displaystyle \underset{f}{}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_f}{3}}\right)m_f^22m_W^2m_Z^2m_h^2\right)2.13.`$ (15)
For the numerical estimate we used $`m_h=130`$ GeV and took only the top quark into account. It would imply a mass of approximatively $`m_\mathrm{\Phi }=\sqrt{\frac{m_H^2}{2}+\alpha v^2}270`$ GeV for the second neutral scalar boson. It is therefore natural to have a cancellation, or near cancellation, of the quadratic divergences if $`\alpha `$ is of order one. On the other hand, the corrections induced at two loops are not vanishing. This is why we claim that the naturalness problem is under control if there is a fundamental cutoff for the model around 10 TeV.

Signatures

A signature of this class of models is again a decay of the standard model Higgs boson to particles that are not charged under SU(2)$`{}_{L}{}^{}\times `$ U(1)Y. But, if only the gauge symmetry describing the gauge interactions is broken, the new physics signals are much more subtle. The measurement of the Higgs boson self-coupling (c.f. figure (1)) becomes very interesting. In that case a sizable new physics effect is expected. At a linear collider with a center of mass of 1000 GeV one expects $`\sigma (e^++e^{}\varphi \varphi \overline{\nu }\nu )7.4\times 10^6`$ pb. This must be compared to the standard model cross section $`\sigma (e^++e^{}hh\overline{\nu }\nu )=8.9\times 10^5`$ pb, assuming a Higgs boson mass of 130 GeV. We have done these estimates using CompHEP , taking only the diagrams corresponding to figure (1) and its standard model counterpart into account. A large effect due to the replica sector should be observed. This represents a further motivation for a measurement of the Higgs boson self-coupling at a future linear collider. The signal is a missing energy corresponding to two scalar fields with a mass around $`270`$ GeV.

### 2.2 A high energy completion?

The cutoff scale can be shifted to a higher scale if we consider $`N`$ replicas or copies of the standard model: (SU(3)$`{}_{\overline{C}}{}^{}\times `$ SU(2)$`{}_{\overline{L}}{}^{}\times `$ U(1)$`_{\overline{Y}}`$)$`{}_{}{}^{N}\times `$ SU(3)$`{}_{C}{}^{}\times `$ SU(2)$`{}_{L}{}^{}\times `$ U(1)Y. In our case each SU(3) $`\times `$ SU(2) $`\times `$ U(1) group has three generations. Note that our model should not be confused with the anti grand unification model proposed in , where $`N`$ stands for the generation number. The vanishing of the quadratic divergences appearing at $`N`$ loops requires that $`N`$ equations are fulfilled. Note that if we have $`N`$ copies of the standard model, we have $`N+(N1)+(N2)+(N3)+(N4)+\mathrm{}=_{K=0}^N(NK)`$ parameters $`\lambda _N`$ at our disposition. In that case the $`N`$ equations can be fulfilled and the scale for the fundamental cutoff can be shifted as high as it is necessary for model building issues. Note that this approach predicts numerous new particles that are stable and very weakly interacting with the usual matter.

## 3 Second case: splitting the scales

We now come to the second case mentioned previously, namely the case where the scale for new physics is not far away from the cutoff scale. In order to illustrate the idea, we shall consider a generic two Higgs doublets model in the limit where the mass of one of the Higgs doublets $`h`$ is low lying, whereas the mass of the second Higgs doublet $`H`$ mass is high. The Veltman’s relations for a generic two Higgs doublets model have been considered in . The fermions are assumed to couple to both scalar doublets, the hypercharge of $`H`$ is taken to be equal to that of $`h`$. This point is however not crucial, the only requirement is that the lightest of the Higgs bosons couples to all fermions in order to reproduce the standard model in the decoupling limit we shall consider. In the sequel we shall assume that the mass of the boson $`H`$ is rather near to the cutoff scale. For this reason, the possible neutral flavor changing decays are strongly suppressed. Furthermore we assume that most of the symmetry breaking is due to the low lying doublet, i.e. $`v_1v=174`$ GeV and $`v_20`$. In that limit the masses of the charged and CP odd Higgs bosons are of the order of the heavy neutral scalar boson. The assumption $`v_20`$ implies that the coefficients of the operators $`h^{}hh^{}H`$ or $`H^{}HH^{}h`$ are nearly vanishing. Again the important terms of the potential for our consideration are:

$`\alpha h^{}hH^{}H+\beta h^{}HH^{}h.`$ (16)
Under the assumptions mentioned above, the leading radiative corrections to the squared masses of the Higgs bosons are given by:

$`m_h^2`$ $``$ $`m_{}^{0}{}_{h}{}^{2}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{3g^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{32\pi ^2m_W^2}}\left(m_h^2+2m_W^2+m_Z^24{\displaystyle \underset{f}{}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_f}{3}}\right)m_f^2\right)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi ^2}}(\alpha +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta )\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2m_H^2\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2+m_H^2}{m_H^2}}\right),`$
and

$`m_H^2`$ $``$ $`m_{}^{0}{}_{H}{}^{2}+(\alpha +\beta )v^2`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{3g^2}{32\pi ^2m_W^2}}(4v^2\lambda _2+2m_W^2+m_Z^24{\displaystyle \underset{f}{}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_f}{3}}\right)m_f^2)\times `$
$`\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2m_H^2\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2+m_H^2}{m_H^2}}\right)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi ^2}}(\alpha +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta )\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2m_H^2\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2+m_H^2}{m_H^2}}\right),`$
where $`\lambda _2`$ is the self-coupling of the second scalar doublet $`H`$. Now we can require the cancellation, or near cancellation, of the quadratic corrections to the squared mass of $`h`$. One obtains:

$`\alpha +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta 3{\displaystyle \frac{3g^2}{8m_W^2}}\left(4{\displaystyle \underset{f}{}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_f}{3}}\right)m_f^2m_h^22m_W^2m_Z^2\right)6.4,`$ (19)
using again $`m_h=`$ 130 GeV for the numerical estimate. The first factor 3 will be explained bellow. Note that although we could adjust $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ to cancel the quadratically divergent corrections to the mass of the Higgs boson $`h`$, the corrections to the second Higgs boson mass are in general rather large. This is the reason why we assume that the mass of the second Higgs boson $`m_H`$ is not much lower than the cutoff, in which case the quadratic corrections to $`m_H^2`$ are small compared to its bare value. The mass of the second scalar field $`H`$ could be around 9 TeV if we take a cutoff of 10 TeV. But, if the mass of the scalar field is not much below the cutoff it is important to consider the full one loop corrections. This explains the term $`\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2m_H^2\mathrm{ln}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2+m_H^2}{m_H^2}\right)`$ in eq. (3). For $`m_H=9`$ TeV and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=10`$ TeV, one finds that $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$ should be replace by approximatively $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2/3`$. This explains the first factor 3 in eq. (19).

Note that in that case, it seems very difficult to push the cutoff scale upwards in a natural way. It has recently been pointed out that the Higgs mechanism can be induced by a large splitting between the two masses of a two Higgs doublets model . It is thus possible to construct a two Higgs doublets model that is natural up to a scale of 10 TeV which furthermore triggers the Higgs mechanism. It will be very difficult to differentiate this model from the standard model since the low energy theory below the 9 TeV scale is just the standard model.

We finally want to point out that it could be possible to shift the supersymmetry breaking scale from one TeV to about 10 TeV if new operators are added, for example, to the minimal supersymmetric model. In that case one would have to assume that the logarithmic terms that lead to a new naturalness problem if the supersymmetric scale is higher than one TeV are cancelled by these new operators. We note that supersymmetry would provide an ultraviolet completion to the model.

## 4 Conclusions

We have described a class of models that are semi-natural in the sense proposed by Veltman in  a long time ago. The idea proposed by Veltman considered in a modern framework provides an interesting alternative to the Little Higgs models whose minimal versions are potentially severely constrained by experiments. In our approach a cancellation of the radiative corrections are only semi-natural because there is no symmetry that imposes them. Nevertheless this is a possibility that cannot be ignored. The new term allowing the cancellation can be generated by different types of models. We have described two classes of models where such a term appears.

The first type of models is a direct product of the standard model and of its replica. If both SU(2) $`\times `$ U(1) symmetries are broken, the Higgs physics is considerably affected. If only the electroweak gauge symmetry is broken, then the new physics effects are much more subtle and only a measurement of the scalar potential will allow to distinguish our scenario from the standard model. This class of model is particularly appealing since the cutoff scale can, in principal, be shifted to any desirable scale by introducing more replicas of the standard model.

We then described a two Higgs doublets model where a cancellation of the one loop quadratic divergences is possible. The second class of model will be much more difficult to distinguish from the standard model and finding a deviation will require to test the very high energy region around the mass of the second Higgs boson which can be as high as 9 TeV.

We would like to emphasize the main point of this paper is that due to an “accidental” cancellation of the one loop quadratic divergences, the true scale for the naturalness problem might be around 10 TeV rather than around 1 TeV as it is usually argued. We do not claim, as Veltman did, that a formula such as eq. (1) could be used to compute the Higgs boson’s mass. We propose to use Veltman’s relation as a criterion for the naturalness of the model. One could imagine introducing different cutoffs for the different particles entering the loop, but even in that case there will be a Veltman type formula that is either fulfilled or not. If it is fulfilled or even approximatively fulfilled, it can be interpreted as a sign that the true scale for the naturalness problem is 10 TeV rather than 1 TeV.

Ultraviolet completions of the models we are proposing have not been considered. One could imagine having $`N`$ copies of the standard model in the case where the mass scale of both scalars is much below the cutoff scale. Note that if $`N14`$, one could consider a cutoff of the order of the grand unification scale. One could also imagine a supersymmetric high energy completion in the case where the mass of one of the scalar doublets is just below the cutoff scale. Another well studied possibility is that the fundamental scale of physics is in the TeV region if nature has more than four dimensions . In our approach the scale for these new extra-dimensions might be around 10 TeV and still provide a solution to the naturalness problem.

## Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to M. Graesser and S. Su for enlightening discussions. Furthermore he would like to thank M. Schmaltz for a useful and interesting communication and P. Bambade for triggering his interest in the question of the measurement of the Higgs boson self-coupling.


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# Open and closed string field theory interpreted in classical algebraic topology

Abstract: There is an interpretation of open string field theory in algebraic topology. An interpretation of closed string field theory can be deduced from this open string theory to obtain as well the interpretation of open and closed string field theory combined. The algebraic structures derived from the first string interactions are related to algebraic models discussed in work of (Atiyah-Segal), (Moore-Segal) and (Getzler and Segal). For example the Corollary 1 of §1 says that the homology of the space of paths in any manifold beginning and ending on any submanifold has the structure of an associative dialgebra satisfying the module or Frobenius compatibility (see appendix). Corollary 2 gives another structure.

§1Open string states in $`M`$: The open string theory interpretation in topology includes a collection of linear categories $`\vartheta M`$ one for each ambient space $`M`$. The objects of $`\vartheta M`$ are smooth oriented submanifolds $`L_a,L_b,L_c,\mathrm{}`$ of $`M`$. The set of morphisms $`\vartheta _{ab}`$ between two objects $`L_a`$ and $`L_b`$ are graded chain complexes, linearly generated by smooth oriented families of paths from $`L_a`$ to $`L_b`$. An element in $`\vartheta _{ab}`$ is called an open string state. A path is a piecewise smooth map $`M`$.

The first open string interactions are
$`i`$)two endpoint restrictions: $`\vartheta _{ab}\stackrel{𝑟}{}\vartheta _{a^{}b}`$ and $`\vartheta _{ab}\stackrel{𝑟}{}\vartheta _{ab^{}}`$ where $`L_a^{}`$ is a submanifold of $`L_a`$ and $`L_b^{}`$ is a submanifold of $`L_b`$. Degree $`r=`$ $``$cod of submanifold.
$`ii`$)joining or composition $`\vartheta _{ab}\vartheta _{bc}\stackrel{}{}\vartheta _{ac}`$, degree $`=`$ $``$dim $`L_b`$
$`iii`$) cutting or cocomposition $`\vartheta _{ac}\stackrel{}{}\vartheta _{ab}\vartheta _{bc}`$, degree $`=`$ $``$cod $`L_b`$ +1

Namely,
$`i`$)(restriction) for an open string state in $`\vartheta _{ab}`$(ie. a chain in $`\vartheta _{ab}`$) one can intersect transversally in $`L_a`$ the chain of beginning points in $`L_a`$ with $`L_a^{}`$ to obtain a chain in $`\vartheta _{a^{}b}`$. The same idea works in $`L_b`$ for the endpoints of paths to construct $`\vartheta _{ab}\stackrel{𝑟}{}\vartheta _{ab^{}}`$.
$`ii`$)(joining) the transversal intersection in $`L_b`$ of the chain of endpoints for an open string state in $`\vartheta _{ab}`$ with the chain of beginning points for an open string state in $`\vartheta _{bc}`$is a chain labelling composible paths which after composing defines an open string state in $`\vartheta _{ac}`$, and the composition $`\vartheta _{ab}\vartheta _{bc}\stackrel{}{}\vartheta _{ac}`$.
$`iii`$)(cutting) Now it is required that $`L_a,L_b,L_c,\mathrm{}`$ have oriented normal bundles. For example, this is true if the ambient space $`M`$ is a smooth manifold. Then given an $`L_b`$ and any open string state in $`\vartheta _{ac}`$ we may transversally intersect in $`M`$ the paths with $`L_b`$. The intersection chain labels cuttings of the path at $`L_b`$ defining $`\vartheta _{ac}\stackrel{}{}\vartheta _{ab}\vartheta _{bc}`$. (We use Eilenberg-Zilber.)
The operation $``$ refers to cutting at any time along the path whenever it crosses $`L_b`$. We can also consider the operation $`_t`$ of cutting at a specific time $`tϵ[0,1]`$. All these $`_t`$ are chain homotopic. In fact $``$ is the chain homotopy between $`_0`$ cutting at time zero and $`_1`$ cutting at time one.

Remark: Actually the above operations are directly defined by the above descriptions only for states satisfying transversality conditions. To go from such a typical definition to a complete definition perturbations of the identity creating transversality must be introduced. The combinatorics of these perturbations fits neatly into Stasheff’s strong homotopy formalism \[S\]. An elegant treatment can be read in Fukaya et al , for the classical case of intersecting chains in a manifold.

Theorem: For each ambient oriented smooth manifold $`M`$ there is an open string category whose objects are smooth submanifolds $`L_a,L_b,L_c,..`$ and whose morphisms are chains $`\vartheta _{\alpha \beta }`$ on paths between objects $`L_\alpha `$ and $`L_\beta `$. Only the objects $`L_a`$ which are compact (without boundary) have identity maps (which commute with the boundary operator). For transversal open string states in $`\vartheta _{\alpha \beta }`$,… composition $``$ is associative, cocomposition $``$ is coassociative, and the derivation compatibility holds between $``$ and $`(x,y)=xy`$, $`(xy)=xy`$ \+ $`xy`$(see appendix). $``$ and $`_t`$ commute with $``$ but $`[,]=_1_0`$.

On the full space of open string states, associativity for $``$ and coassociativity for $`_t`$ hold up to strong homotopy in the sense of Stasheff. There are conjecturally similar strong homotopy statements for coassociativity of $``$ and the derivation or infinitesimal bialgebra compatibility between $``$ and $``$.(see appendix).

Corollary 1: For each object $`L_a`$ the homology of $`\vartheta _{aa}`$ is an associative algebra via the composition operation $``$ (with identity if $`L_a`$ is compact without boundary). The operation $`_t`$ is a coassociative coalgebra (which if non zero implies $`L_a`$ cannot be deformed off of itself). The $``$, $`_t`$ dialgebra satisfies the module or Frobenius compatibility (see appendix).

Proof of corollary: $`i`$) The algebra statement follows from a) $``$ commutes with $``$ operator on open string states and so passes to homology b)homotopy associativity at the chain level implies associativity at the homology level.
ii) a)The fixed time cutting operation $`_t`$ also commutes with the $``$ operator and passes to homology. b) because different times are chain homotopic we can choose them conveniently to prove the module or Frobenius compatibility. To calculate $`_t(xy)`$ we can choose $`t`$ in $`x`$’s time to see that we get $`_t(x)y`$ or in $`y`$’s time to see that we get $`x_t(y)`$. See the remark 2) for the rest.

Sketch proof of theorem: 1) One sees the indicated identities hold for transversal chains by looking at the picture. For example, when cutting a joining of paths, the cut can happen in the first part or the second part. This yields the derivation compatibility.
2) The strong homotopy properties follow using i) manifolds are locally contractible
ii) transversality can be created in manifolds by arbitrarily small pertubations.

Remarks: 1) The coalgebra $`_t`$ is chain homotopic to $`_0`$ which may be written as a composition involving the restriction and the diagonal mapping. Let $`L_a^{}`$ be the transversal intersection of $`L_a`$ with itself. Then $`_0`$ is the composition of, first the restriction of the beginning point to $`L_a^{}`$, next the inclusion of $`\vartheta _{a^{}a}`$ into $`\vartheta _{aa}`$, next the diagonal map on generating chains of $`\vartheta _{aa}`$, next the cartesian product on chains of the beginning point operator(thought of as a constant path) with the identity and finally Eilenberg-Zilber. A similar composition and statement hold for $`_1`$.
2) We can use remark 1) to define a new coalgebra structure on homology when $`L_a`$ is deformable off itself, say to $`L_b`$. Then define $`:\vartheta _{aa}\vartheta _{ab}\vartheta _{ba}`$ cutting at variable time and note that $`_0`$ and $`_1`$ are zero on the chain level. Thus $``$ commutes with $``$ and passes to homology. We use the obvious equivalences $`\vartheta _{aa}\vartheta _{ba}\vartheta _{ab}`$ to obtain:

Corollary 2: If $`L_a`$ is deformable off of itself, the homology of open string states on $`L_a`$ has the structure of an associative dialgebra satisfying the derivation or infinitesimal bialgebra compatibility (see appendix).

Examples: $`i`$)(manifolds) $`L_a=M`$ the ambient space. Then $`\vartheta _{aa}`$ is equivalent to the ordinary chains on $`M`$ since paths in $`M`$ is homotopy equivalent to $`M`$. Then the strong homotopy associativity algebra structure on $`\vartheta _{aa}`$ is equivalent to the intersection algebra of chains on $`M`$. The operation $`_{}_t_1`$ is chain equivalent to the diagonal mapping on chains. One recovers the known fact that on passing to homology one obtains a graded commutative algebra structure $`CC\stackrel{}{}C`$ and a graded cocommutative coalgebra structure $`C\stackrel{}{}CC`$ satisfying the module or Frobenius compatibility $`(xy)=x(y)=(x)y`$ where the notation refers to multiplication on the left and right factors of the tensor product respectively (see appendix).

Note when $`M`$ is a closed oriented manifold $``$ and $``$ are related by the non degenerate intersection pairing, Poincare duality.

$`ii`$)(based loop space)$`M`$ is any space and $`L_a`$ is a point in $`M`$. Then $`\vartheta _{aa}`$ is the chains on the based loop space of $`M`$ and the algebra structure on $`\vartheta _{aa}`$ is the Pontryagin algebra of chains on the based loop space (the original setting of Stasheff’s work). No transversality is needed here because all paths are composible. Here one has Hopf’s celebrated compatibility with the diagonal map $`^{}`$ on chains that $`^{}`$ is a map of algebras. The connection of the latter with the open string theory here is a mystery (but compare  and remark 1) above).

If $`M`$ is a manifold of dim $`M`$ near $`L_a`$ and $`L_a`$ is a point, the cocomposition $`_t`$ is defined but is zero in homology. The operation $``$ can then be refined to a chain mapping and passes to homology (remark 2)). $`\vartheta _{aa}`$ obtains a coassociative coalgebra structure on homology of degree (-dim $`M`$) +1 satisfying the derivation or infinitesimal bialgebra compatibility (of the theorem) with the Pontryagin product. Here one is splitting a based loop where it passes again through a (nearby) base point.

$`iii`$) (free loop space) Let $`M=L`$ x $`L`$ and $`L_aM`$ be the diagonal. Then paths in $`M`$ beginning and ending on $`L_a`$ is homeomorphic to the free loop space of $`L`$= Maps (circle, $`L`$). Then the algebra structure on $`\vartheta _{aa}`$ is chain homotopic to the loop product of ”String Topology”. This is a graded commutative algebra structure on the homology of the free loop space of the manifold $`L`$. The degree is zero if we grade by the negative codimension ($`k`$dim$`M`$).

The product interacts with the circle action differential $`\mathrm{}`$ of degree +1. The deviation of $`\mathrm{}`$ from being a derivation of the loop product $`\mathrm{}(xy)(\mathrm{}x)yx(\mathrm{}y)`$ is a Lie bracket of degree +1 which is compatible via the Leibniz identity with the loop product (all on homology). This Lie bracket is a geometric version  of Gerstenhaber’s bracket in the (Hochshild) deformation complex of an associative algebra. For simply connected closed manifolds $`L`$ the Hochshild complex $`_k`$ Hom ($`A^k,A`$) applied to the intersection algebra $`A`$ of chains on $`L`$ is a model of the free loop space of $`L`$ (Cohen-Jones, Tradler) which realizes the above comparison (Tradler).

The Lie product on the free loop space of degree +1 is compatible via the connecting morphism $`M`$ between equivariant homology and ordinary homology with a Lie bracket on the equivariant free loop space homology . The latter Lie bracket generalizes to all manifolds the Goldman bracket (related to the Poisson structure on flat bundles over a surface) on the vector space generated by conjugacy classes in the fundamental group of a surface \[Goldman\] (see closed strings §2 below).

If the coalgebra part $`_t`$ of the Frobenius dialgebra on homology of the free loop space of $`L`$ is non zero, then $`L`$ is a closed manifold with non-zero Euler characteristic. Otherwise a homotopy class of non-zero vector fields on $`L`$ allows a refining of the operation $``$ cutting at variable time to an operation commuting with $``$ and we obtain in this case an infinitesimal bialgebra structure (appendix) on the homology of the free loop space.

§2Closed string states in $`M`$ (now called $`L`$): For closed string states in $`L`$ we take the chains for the equivariant free loop space of $`L`$ relative to the circle action rotating the domain. There are maps
$`\stackrel{𝐶}{}`$ closed string states in $`L`$ $`\stackrel{𝑀}{}`$ open string states on the diagonal in $`L`$x$`L`$ $`\stackrel{𝐸}{}`$ closed string states in $`L`$ $`\stackrel{𝐶}{}`$
leading to the long exact sequence relating ordinary homology and equivariant circle homology. Here we are thinking of the free loop space of $`L`$ as paths in $`L`$ x $`L`$ beginning and ending on the diagonal.

The connecting chain map $`C`$ has degree -2 and intersects with a representative of the 1st chern class of the line bundle associated to the $`S^1`$ action made free by crossing with a contractible space on which $`S^1`$ acts freely. The chain map $`M`$ has degree +1 and is associated to adding a mark to a closed string in all ways to get a circle of free loops. The chain map $`E`$ has degree zero and is associated to forgetting the mark on a loop to get a closed string. The composition $`EM=0`$ and the composition $`ME`$ is $`\mathrm{}`$ the differential associated to the circle action.

The string product on closed string states satisfying Jacobi (at the transversal chain level) may be defined by the formula $`[\alpha ,\beta ]=E(M\alpha M\beta )`$ where $``$ is the open string product (the procedure in example 3 above only satisfies Jacobi up to a non trivial chain homotopy). Other independent closed string operations $`c_n`$ can be defined by $`c_n(\alpha _1,\alpha _2,\mathrm{},\alpha _n`$)=$`E(M\alpha _1M\alpha _2\mathrm{}M\alpha _n)`$(cf.  and \[G\]). These all commute with the $``$ operator and satisfy other identities transversally .

The collision operators $`c_n`$ pass to the reduced equivariant complex or reduced closed string states which is defined to be the equivariant chain complex for the $`S^1`$ pair, (free loop space, constant loops).

We can define a closed string cobracket $`s_2`$ by the formula $`s_2(\alpha )=(EE)((M\alpha ))`$. In the reduced complex $`s_2`$ commutes with $``$ and passes to homology (but not so in the unreduced complex).

Theorem: The closed string bracket $`c_2(\alpha ,\beta )=E(M\alpha M\beta )`$ where $`xy=(xy)`$ and the closed string cobracket $`s_2(\alpha )=(EE)(M\alpha )`$ satisfy respectively jacobi, cojacobi, and Drinfeld compatibility (appendix). The term satisy means either on the level of integral homology, for transversal chains on the chain level, or conjecturally at the Stasheff level of strong homotopy.

Proof: These formulae in terms of open strings are reinterpretations as in  of the definitions given in ”Closed string operators in topology leading to Lie bialgebras and higher string algebra” . There the identities at the transversal chain level were considered.

Corollary: Homology of reduced closed string states forms a Lie bialgebra, .

Remark: Independent splitting operations $`s_3,s_4,\mathrm{}`$ can be defined similarly by iterations of $``$, $`s_n(\alpha )=E\mathrm{}E(\mathrm{}1(M\alpha ))`$. These also commute with $``$ and pass to homology in the reduced equivariant theory. A conjecture about $`c_2,c_3,\mathrm{}`$ $`s_2,s_3,\mathrm{}`$ generating genus zero closed string operators and the algebraic form of this structure was proposed in  and is mentioned below in the summary. Also, compare \[Chas\] for the original questions motivating this work.

Interplay between open and closed string states: Let $`𝒞`$ denote the closed string states in $`M`$, a manifold of dimension $`d`$, and let $`\vartheta `$ denote any of the complexes of open string states. Transversality yields an action of closed strings on open strings,

$`𝒞\vartheta \vartheta `$ degree=($`d+2`$)

and a coaction of closed strings on open strings

$`\vartheta 𝒞\vartheta `$ degree=($`d+2`$)

In the coaction we let the open string hit itself at any two times and split the event into a closed string and an open string. In the action we let a closed string combine with an open string to yield an open string.

The action is a Lie action of the Lie algebra of closed strings by derivations at the transversal chain level. Both the action and the coaction have a non trivial commutator with the boundary operator on chains.

§3Connection to work of (Atiyah-Segal),(Moore-Segal) and (Getzler and Segal): Dialgebras satisfying the module or Frobenius compatibility give examples of 1+1 TQFT’s in the positive boundary sense. In the commutative case we associate the underlying vector space to a directed circle, its tensor products to a disjoint union of directed circles and to a connected $`2D`$ oriented bordism between two non empty collections the morphism obtained by decomposing the bordism into pants and composing accordingly the algebra or coalgebra map. The module or Frobenius compatibility is just what is required for the result to be independent of the choice of pants decomposition.

$`N.B.`$ this description differs from the usual one because we don’t have disks to close up either end of the bordism. One knows these discs at both ends would force the algebra to be finite dimensional and the algebra and coalgebra to be related by a non degenerate inner product. We refer to these generalizations of the Atiyah-Segal concepts as the positive boundary version of TQFT (a name due to Ralph Cohen).

An exactly similar discussion with associative dialgebras satisfying the module or Frobenius compatibility leads to a positive boundary version of a relative TQFT using open intervals. Now the algebra and coalgebra are associated to 1/2 pants (a disc with $``$ divided into six intervals-three (1/2 seams) alternating with two (1/2 cuffs) and one (1/2 waist)). Any planar connected bordism between two nonempty collections of intervals determines a mapping between inputs and outputs.

The structures we have found (including $``$ labels $`L_a,L_b,\mathrm{}`$) for open strings using the composition $``$ and fixed time cutting $`_t`$ satisfies this Frobenius compatibility up to chain homotopy and we can apply it at the homology level in the relative TQFT scheme just mentioned. This fits with the work of Moore-Segal \[M\].

As we begin to look at the chain homotopy coproduct $``$ the derivation or infinitesimal bialgebra compatibility appears. According to \[Gan\] the derivation or infinitesimal bialgebra compatibility is related to the notion of module or Frobenius compatibility via Koszul duality (see appendix).

Now we are entering into a third stage-the proposal of Segal (and independently Getzler) enriching the earlier notion of TQFT by chain complexes and chain homotopies.

Recall the free loop space above gives on the ordinary (chain) homology level a (strong homotopy) commutative associative product and a cocommutative coassociative coproduct (cutting at a fixed time) satisfying the module or Frobenius compatibility. This together with the associative Frobenius category above for open strings fits with the model \[M\]. In that model ordinary and equivariant levels are not distinguished.

We saw that passing to the equivariant setting the product and the cutting at variable time gave a Lie bialgebra in the reduced theory. According to \[Gan\] Lie dialgebras with Drinfeld compatibility are related to commutative dialgebras with Frobenius compatibility by Koszul duality (see appendix).

§4 Summary: We have described the part of the interpretation of open and closed string field theory in topology associated to the basic product and coproduct (and in the equivariant setting certain implied $`n`$-variable splitting and collision operators as in ). The coproduct discussion has two levels involving a coproduct $`_t`$ and an associated chain homotopy coproduct $``$.

We found the open string product and the coproduct $`_t`$ satisfied the module or Frobenius compatibility on the level of homology. In a setting where $`_0`$ and $`_1`$ were zero or even deformable to zero, $``$ emerges as or can be deformed to a coproduct commuting with $``$ and thus a coproduct $``$ on homology of one higher degree. Then a new compatibility with the product is observed- the derivation or infinitesimal bialgebra compatibility (true transversally).

Similarly for the closed string one has to consider the free loop space in both the ordinary and equivariant versions. For the open string with diagonal boundary conditions the relevant ordinary (chains) homology of the free loop space becomes a (strong homotopy) commutative dialgebra with the module or Frobenius compatibility. Passing to the equivariant theory required for the closed string interpretation and reducing to kill $`_0`$ and $`_1`$ which makes $``$ commute with $``$, the product coproduct pair becomes a Lie dialgebra with the derivation or Drinfeld compatibility (equals Lie bialgebra). According to \[Gan\] the associative and commutative dialgebras with the module or Frobenius compatibility are respectively Koszul dual to the associative and Lie dialgebras with the derivation or Drinfeld compatibility. This suggests that one of the structures will intervene in descriptions of strong homotopy versions (in the sense of Stasheff) of the dual structure (see appendix).

One can go further as discussed in  and visualize conjecturally all the above collision and splitting operations of the closed string theory $`c_2,c_3,\mathrm{},s_2,s_3,\mathrm{}`$ defining on homology a structure Koszul dual to the positive boundary version of the Frobenius manifold structure described in \[Manin\].

The above is only a partial interpretation. The full interpretation of open closed string field theory in topology involves full families of arbitrary cutting and reconnecting operations of a string in an ambient space $`M`$. For closed curves some full families of these operators were labelled combinatorially by decorated even valence ribbon graphs obtained by collapsing chords in . There is a serious compactness issue for the full families discussed there for realizing these in algebraic topology. The issue is a correct computation of the boundary. The problem has a parallel with renormalization in Feynman graphs. For the compactness algebraic topology issue one needs to associate operators to families of geometric graphs where various subgraphs are collapsing. When all the components of the collapsing subgraphs are trees there is no real problem as discussed in . Similarly for Feynman graphs it is my understanding that if there were only tree collapses there is no problem of renormalization.

In both cases algebraic topology transversality normal bundle and Feynman graphs the loops in collapsing subgraphs cause the problems.

In  we had to deal with some simple cases of one loop subgraph collapses to treat the identities defining the Lie bialgebra (in particular Drinfeld compatibility). This lead to the idea of using the Fulton MacPherson compactification of configuration spaces to complete the discussion. There is a normal bundle issue related to transversality which requires more analysis to treat the general $`FM`$ stratum. However for disjoint union of graphs with at most one loop per component this normal bundle for transversality can be easily described as in .

Now we expect a Riemann surface discussion to be sufficient to complete the string field theory transversality construction. This will complete the definition of the operations for this topological interpretation of open closed string field theory. The idea is that 1) general cutting and reconnecting operation on strings is isomorphic to the change in level that occurs when passing through a critical level of a harmonic function on a Riemann surface and 2) geometrical ideas due to Thurston and then Penner \[P\] allow an analysis of the combinatorial compactifications of spaces of Riemann surfaces in terms of ribbon graphs.

Thus if the transversality cutting and reconnecting operations of the string field theory interpretations are organized by ribbon graphs, then the compactness and transversality normal bundle issues discussed in  can be treated for open and closed strings. This is work in progress.

Appendix: (dialgebras and compatibilities) Let us call a linear space $`V`$ with two maps $`VV\stackrel{}{}V`$ and $`V\stackrel{}{}VV`$ a dialgebra. Associative dialgebra means $``$ is associative and $``$ is coassociative. Commutative dialgebra means besides being associative $``$ and $``$ are symmetric. Lie dialgebra means both maps are skew symmetric and that jacobi and cojacobi hold.

In all these cases $`V`$ and $`VV`$ have module structures over $`V`$ and there are two kinds of compatibilities between $``$ and $``$ relative to these. We get six kinds of structures (five appear in this paper, see table below) which are examples of definitions of algebras over dioperads \[Gan\]. These are structures whose generators and relations are described diagrammatically by trees.

The familiar example of a compatibility studied by Hopf that $``$ is a map of algebras (associative or commutative case but not Lie) can only be described by a non tree diagram.

The compatibilities we consider here are
derivation compatibility $`(ab)=(a)b+a(b)`$ and
module compatibility $`(ab)=(a)b=a(b)`$

Table with names of compatibility and/or structure and/or examples.
Module compatibility   Derivation compatibility

Associative

dialgebra

Frobenius compatibility

$``$ Frobenius algebra=

associative algebra with

non degenerate invariant

inner product

infinitesimal bialgebra

compatibility=

infinitesimal bialgebra

(see Aguilar)

Commutative

dialgebra

Frobenius compatibility

$``$commutative Frobenius

algebra

commutative cocommutative

infinitesimal bialgebra

Lie

dialgebra

Frobenius compatibility

$``$Lie algebra with

non degenerate invariant

inner product

Drinfeld compatibility

=Lie bialgebra

Where the $``$ refers to the algebra structure or the module structure (which means in the associative case $`a(bc)=(ab)c,(ab)c=a(bc)`$
and in the Lie case $`a(bc)=(bc)a=[a,b]c+b[a,c]`$ where $`[x,y]=(xy`$).)

In \[Gan\] Koszul dual pairs are defined and there it is proved that upper left and upper right are Koszul dual pairs and that middle left and lower right are Koszul dual pairs. We suppose that the lower left and middle right are also Koszul dual pairs.

We note in passing a remark about derivation or Drinfeld compatibility and algebra or Hopf compatibility. A category of ”power series” Hopf algebras $`𝒰`$ was shown to be equivalent to the category of Lie bialgebras $`𝒟`$ where $`𝒟𝒰`$ was a formal quantization and $`𝒰𝒟`$ was a semi classical limit (Etingof-Kahzdan).

We emphasize these Koszul relations because in several important situations a strong homotopy algebraic structure of one kind is very naturally expressed by freely generated diagrams decorated with tensors labeled by the Koszul dual structure. In the above discussion all the structures that are true transversally will almost certainly lead to strong homotopy versions on the entire space of states. So these might be expressed in this graphical Koszul dual way.

References:

K. Fukaya,Oh, Ohta, Ono ”Lagrangin intersection Floer theory -anomaly and obstruction” - (2000) See Fukaya website.

 M. Chas and D. Sullivan ”String Topology” GT/ 9911159. Annals of Mathematics (to appear).

 M. Chas and D. Sullivan ”Closed string operators in topology leading to Lie bialgebras and higher string algebra” GT/ 0212358. Abel Bicentennial Proceedings (to appear).

\[G\] E.Getzler ”Operads and moduli spaces of genus zero Riemann surfaces”. In:The Moduli Spaces of Curves ed. by R.Dijkgraaf, C. Faber, G. van der Geer Progress in Math, vol.129 Birkhauser 1995, 199-230.

\[M\] Greg Moore ”Some Comments on Branes, G-Flux, and K-theory” Part II and references to Segal notes therein. International Journal of Modern Physics A. arXiv:hep-th/0012007 v1. 1 Dec. 2000.

\[Gan\] Wee Liang Gan ”Koszul duality for dioperads” preprint University of Chicago 2002 QA/0201074.

\[Goldman\] William M.Goldman ”Invariant functions on Lie group and Hamiltonian flows of surface group representations” Invent. Math. 85(1986), no. 2, 263-302.

\[Manin\] Yuri Manin ”Frobenius Manifolds, Quantum cohomology and moduli spaces” AMS Colloquium Publications, Vol. 47.

\[Cohen-Jones\] ”A homotopy theoretic realization of string topology” math GT/0107187.

\[Tradler\] ”The BV Algebra on Hochschild Cohomology Induced by Infinity Inner Products”, GT/0210150.

\[S\] James Stasheff ”H-spaces from a homotopy point of view,” Lecture Notes in Mathematics 161, Springer-Verlag, Berlin (1970), ii-95.

\[Chas\] Moira Chas ”Combinatorial Lie bialgebras of curves on surfaces” to appear in Topology. Also arXiv GT/0105178.

\[P\] R. C. Penner ”The decorated Teichmuller space of punctured surface”, Communications in mathematical physics 113 (1987) 299-339.

CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016
SUNY at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794-3651
email: dsullivan@gc.cuny.edu


text:
# Continuum and spectral line observations of the OH Megamaser galaxy Arp 220

## 1 Introduction

Ultra-luminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) are so named because their infrared luminosity is greater than the luminosity in all the other wavelengths combined ($`L_{IR}>10^{12}L_{}`$). The source of such copious emission is thought to be the enormous amount of molecular dust in their central regions, which obscures visible and other wavelengths and produces infrared light through heating. The dust grains are excellent absorbers of short wavelength radiation emitted from newly formed OB stars, so a high infrared luminosity is a tracer of star formation. In many cases however active galactic nuclei and Seyfert-like nuclei can play an important role. A review of the properties of this kind of galaxy can be found in Sanders & Mirabel (1996).

One of the most interesting properties of ULIRGs is that they tend to be merging systems, as it takes a strong merger of dust rich galaxies to generate the observed high density star formation. The proportion of the mergers among ULIRGs gets larger when the infrared luminosity gets higher, and is 100% in luminosities above $`10^{12}L_{}`$. (See Sanders & Mirabel (1996) and references therein). Many of them also have very powerful OH maser emission (e.g. Darling & Giovanelli (2002)) in which the luminosity exceeds that of known galactic masers by a factor of at least 106, hence the term “megamaser”.

Arp 220 is one of the most luminous infrared galaxies with $`L_{IR}=1.4\times 10^{12}L_{}`$ (Soifer et al., 1987) and provides a superb example of the starburst phenomenon, demonstrated graphically by the discovery of several radio supernovae (Smith et al., 1998). Starburst phenomena are used by Shioya, Trentham & Tanigushi (2001) and Iwasawa et al. (2001) to explain the X-ray properties of Arp 220, although the existence of a heavily obscured AGN is not ruled out. Recent CHANDRA results (Clements et al., 2002) show that the hard X-Ray emission in Arp 220 is confined in a sub-kiloparsec scale region, in contrast to other starburst galaxies and its spectrum shows that the hard X-rays are more likely to be produced by one or more low luminosity, heavily obscured AGN, X-Ray binaries or Ultra Luminous X-Ray sources rather than the supernovae. Therefore the co-existence of such structures is still plausible.

The morphology of Arp 220 is also an open issue. At optical (Scoville et al., 1998) as well as at radio wavelengths (eg. Norris 1988) it exhibits a double structure with tidal tails and dust lanes which leads to the assumption that it is the result of a recent merging phenomenon. Studies of CO, HI and the OH maser emission enable the determination of its velocity structures. On balance, the current data appear to favor a model of two counterrotating disks as parts of a larger scale disk (Sakamoto et al., 1999; Mundell, Ferruit & Pedlar, 2001), but a single warped circumnuclear disk model can also be fit to the data (Eckart & Downes, 2001). In the case of the related galaxy IIIZw35 the existence of evidence for such a disk, where the OH maser is located, was recently revealed (Philström et al., 2001) so a search for a similar structure in Arp 220 would be useful.

The very powerful maser emission is perhaps the most striking property of Arp 220. It was first discovered by Baan, Wood & Haschick (1982) while searching for OH absorption in galaxies with known HI absorption. The masers were thought to arise in regions extending to several hundreds of parsecs (Baan, 1985). However, higher resolution studies (Diamond et al., 1989; Lonsdale et al., 1998) revealed a dual component structure: there is a diffuse component which consists of approximately one third of the 1667 MHz OH emission plus almost all of the 1665 MHz OH emission with a physical extent of some hundred parsecs as suggested by the Baan model; but there is also a compact component consisting only of the 1667 MHz line with a physical extent of just a few parsecs. These compact masers show high velocity widths, even in this very small physical extent (Lonsdale et al., 1998). This means that either they come from a region with a volume of a few pc3 or they represent long, thin filaments with their orientation along the line of sight. In the first case there has to be a hidden infrared source in that region to provide the essential pumping photons, or the optical depth of this region has to be large enough to trap the infrared photons, if the pumping is indeed radiative and not collisional due to shock fronts from the nearby supernovae. If filamental structure was present to any great extent we would have to explain why the filaments’ orientation is only along the line of sight, so that we cannot see elongated structures (Lonsdale et al, 2001). Probably we are only seing filaments which lie on the line of sight due to the gain path needed for a maser to be detected.

In this paper we present new MERLIN OH spectral line and continuum data, and compare it with previously presented global VLBI data (Smith et al., 1998; Lonsdale et al., 1998).

## 2 Observations and Data Reduction

In this section we describe the MERLIN and global VLBI observations of both line and continuum emission

### 2.1 MERLIN Observations

#### 2.1.1 1.6 GHz Spectral Line Data

Data were taken on 23 April 1998 with seven MERLIN antennas including the 76 m Lovell telescope observing with left-hand circular polarization only. The dataset included observations of the target source Arp 220 (spending 9 hours and 20 minutes on source) and the phase reference 1511+238, as well as two scans on the point source calibrator 2134+004 and one scan on the flux calibrator 3C286. The observations covered a bandwidth of 4 MHz and were correlated to produce 256 channels, each with a bandwidth of 15.625 KHz.

The initial editing and gain elevation corrections, as well as preliminary amplitude calibration were made using MERLIN specific software. Then, the data were transferred into NRAO’s Astronomical Image Processing System (AIPS) for bandpass calibration and phase corrections. Phase referencing was performed using the data on 1511+238. The data were then self-calibrated starting from a point source model and the solutions were applied to the Arp 220 data. After that line free channels were averaged and an image of this continuum was produced in ‘difmap’. There may be modest contamination of the continuum image by weak 1665 MHz OH emission but tests have shown this to be minimal. We attempted to image the 1665 MHz emission but it was too diffuse even on MERLIN scales; it was detected only on short baselines, shorter than $`0.35M\lambda `$. Several iterations of self-calibration were performed on the continuum data and the solutions obtained were then applied to the multi-frequency dataset and the data averaged for 60 seconds. The final spectral line dataset was generated by subtracting the continuum emission using UVLIN and then averaging every two channels together, resulting in a velocity resolution of 5.6 km s-1.

#### 2.1.2 1.6 GHz Continuum Data

Continuum data were taken on 23 June 1998 with six MERLIN antennas using right hand circular polarization. The dataset includes observations of the target source Arp 220 (spending 4 hours on source) and the phase reference 1511+238, as well as two scans on the point source calibrator 2134+004 and two scans on the flux calibrator 3C286. 16 channels were generated by the correlator, each with a bandwidth of 1 MHz, the central channel (8) being set at a frequency of 1666.00 MHz.

Local MERLIN software was used to perform the gain elevation corrections and preliminary amplitude calibration and editing. Bandpass calibration was performed and AIPS was used for further calibration. After flux calibration, the phase reference source was used for phase calibration, and three rounds of self-calibration were performed on 1511+238 starting from a point-source model. The solutions were copied and applied to all the data, channels 2 to 15 were averaged and a first image of Arp 220 was produced. Starting from this image, we performed four iterations of self calibration on the Arp 220 data before creating the final image.

#### 2.1.3 5 GHz Continuum Data

5 GHz data were taken using 6 MERLIN antennas in full polarization on 29 May 2000. The dataset consisted of observations of Arp 220 (spending 7 hours on source) and the phase reference 1551+239 as well as five scans on the point source 2134+004 and two scans on the flux calibrator 3C286. Again, 16 channels were produced by the correlator each with a bandwidth of 1 MHz, the central channel being set at a frequency of 4.995 GHz.

Standard procedures were followed for the data reduction, the phase corrections from the phase reference source were applied to the Arp 220 data and after self-calibration the final image was produced using Stokes I.

### 2.2 VLBI Observations

The VLBI data used for comparison are those discussed in our previous papers, Smith et al. (1998) and Lonsdale et al. (1998). The data were taken in November 1994 and discussion of the calibration is contained with the papers.

## 3 Results

### 3.1 Continuum

#### 3.1.1 MERLIN

The 1.6 GHz (June 1998) MERLIN continuum image of Arp 220 is shown in Figure 1: A double component structure is present, with the western and the eastern components separated by $``$1 arcsec ($``$370 pc if we assume a distance of 76 Mpc; H0=75 km s-1 Mpc-1) and at the same positions as the 1.3 mm (Sakamoto et al., 1999) and the 4.83 GHz (Baan & Haschick 1995; this paper) continuum peaks. The integrated flux densities are (91.9$`\pm `$0.9) mJy and (111.2$`\pm `$0.8) mJy for the eastern and the western components respectively. We should note here that the component boundaries are somewhat arbitrary, so the overall diffuse emission plays a role in deriving these numbers: the values given are lower limits. The total integrated flux density of the galaxy at 1.6 GHz is (280$`\pm `$40) mJy, consistent with that derived at 1.4 GHz by Mundell et al. (2001) (285.4$`\pm `$14.3 mJy).

In Figure 1 we can see that the eastern component is elongated in a northeast - southwest direction and a ‘spur’ of emission is visible on the northwest of the western component. This is also detected by Mundell et al. (2001) at 1.4 GHz and by Baan & Haschick (1995) in the 4.8 GHz continuum. A component southeast of the western component is also detected as part of a more extended emission pattern, possibly part of the extended emission detected by the VLA (Baan & Haschick, 1984). The peak flux of this region is 8.72 mJy beam-1, whereas the off-source noise level is 0.55 mJy beam-1.

In Figure 2 we can see the 5 GHz image of Arp 220 where again the double component structure is present, although more extended structure is not detected. The peaks of the two components are separated by (1.066$`\pm `$0.004) arcsec and their integrated fluxes are (33.6$`\pm `$1.0) mJy and (60.7$`\pm `$0.8) mJy for the east and west respectively, while the off-source noise level is 0.4 mJy beam-1. If we compare these fluxes with these of the 1.6 GHz data we can derive the spectral indices of these two continuum components to be:
$`\alpha _e=0.90\pm 0.03`$
$`\alpha _w=0.542\pm 0.013`$
The errors shown here are statistical. There might be systematic effects that cause larger errors. The spectral indices derived here are similar to the spectral index (for the whole nucleus) assumed by Norris (1988) (-0.6 to -0.9). This is a characteristic of synchrotron radiation (see next paragraph) though it cannot give us a safe indication of the exact origin of the emission or its power source.

#### 3.1.2 Global VLBI

The results from the continuum VLBI dataset have been previously presented by Smith et al. (1998), where the discovery of probable radio supernovae (RSNe) is reported. There are about a dozen RSNe (November 1994) in the western nuclear region and possibly one or two in the eastern, without any other obvious compact continuum component. (Figures 1a and 1b respectively in Smith et al. (1998)) The sum of the flux densities of the observed supernovae in the western region is 7.87 mJy and in the eastern is 0.78 mJy including the marginally detected ones. If we compare these with the flux densities observed with MERLIN it is safe to assume that the MERLIN and VLBI continuum detections are the results of different processes; the large-scale MERLIN continuum emission probably comes from synchrotron acceleration of free electrons (possibly generated in the supernova explosions), while the VLBI emission probably arises from the interaction between the explosion material and the stellar wind generated before the star exploded.

### 3.2 Spectral Line

#### 3.2.1 MERLIN

The naturally weighted velocity maps of Arp 220 (after continuum subtraction) can be seen in Figure 3. There are three components present, one in the east and two in the west (northwest and southwest). The eastern component is more redshifted than those in the west, suggesting an overall velocity gradient along the east-west axis. This is in agreement with the suggested presence of an overall rotating disk (Scoville, Yun & Bryant, 1997; Sakamoto et al., 1999; Mundell et al., 2001). The off-source noise level is 3.2 mJy beam-1.

In Figure 4 we can see the spectral line emission (naturally weighted and averaged over the velocity range of the OH emission) superimposed on the continuum emission. This continuum image (in greyscale) is not the same as that in Figure 1, but was generated from the continuum portion of the spectral line dataset. The error in relative position between the continuum and the spectral line image is less than a milliarcsecond but the noise in this continuum image is significantly greater than that obtained from the wideband continuum data (0.83 mJy beam-1). The eastern portion of the spectral line emission is seen to be at the same position as the continuum, but the peak of the western component of the continuum emission lies between the two regions of spectral line emission. The northwestern line component is at the same position as the compact VLBI component and the southwestern emission corresponds to the previously observed diffuse component (Lonsdale et al., 1998). The eastern component spectrum is broad and has a double peak, which implies that regions with different velocities are superimposed (visible with the VLBI) to produce the component detected with MERLIN; their spectra are blended together.

#### 3.2.2 Global VLBI

Lonsdale et al. (1998) presented the results of the VLBI spectral line dataset, where they find both a diffuse and a compact component in each of the eastern and the western regions. In Figure 5 we can see the spectral line VLBI image of Arp 220 (in contours) with respect to the continuum emission (in greyscale). Both images are convolved with a taper of 10 M$`\lambda `$ to include both regions in one map, so they are of degraded spatial resolution. In the western region we can detect the maser in regions where we have continuum emission due to the supernovae, but the majority of the compact maser emission is detected in regions north and south of the supernovae, where no compact continuum is detected. In the case of the eastern region there is no clear compact continuum emission, only hints of possible radio supernovae; the maser does not follow the pattern seen in the west. Close-ups of the two nuclear regions are shown in contours (the same as in figures 1 and 2 of Lonsdale et al. (1998)) with full resolution. (Beam size 9.8$`\times `$2.5 mas). Spectra of different regions are also shown. One interesting point to note is the fourth spectrum (lower left in Figure 5), which shows absorption. We should note that there are problems with imaging diffuse emission with the global VLBI due to the lack of short uv spacings, we are however confident of some absorption being present. This suggests that the OH radical is present even in regions with no maser emission. We also detect part of the 1665 MHz emission, clearly seen in the two diffuse regions (spectra 5 and 8) and in the eastern compact region (spectra 1 and 2). To determine the origin of this emission we used tighter boxes to determine the spectra; the 1665 MHz emission then fades dramatically with respect to the 1667 MHz emission. This suggests that it is diffuse and comes from the overall area, a result first reported in Lonsdale et al. (1998).

## 4 Discussion

### 4.1 Positions of the Masers

Any discussion of positions must be prefaced by the comment that since we performed self calibration, information about the absolute positions of the components is lost. The conclusions we make below are based on the relative positions of the components. We have extremely accurate relative positions (sub-mas) since we are able to obtain low sensitivity images of the continuum emission from the spectral line datasets; these can be used to tie down the position of the high sensitivity continuum image with respect to the maser positions.

It is clear that in both MERLIN and VLBI maps the continuum emission does not coincide with the maser peaks. Table 1 lists the measured offsets between various maser and continuum components in the MERLIN and VLBI images. (We chose the brightest supernova as the location of the VLBI western continuum peak and the brightest maser component (area of spectrum 2) as the peak of the spectral line emission in the east).

From this table we can assume that the northwestern MERLIN component of the maser emission is at the same position as the compact northwestern VLBI maser component and the southwestern maser MERLIN component is at the same position as the diffuse southwestern VLBI maser component. In this case, the brightest radio supernova is on the northern part of the western MERLIN continuum emission, $``$0.05 arcsec offset from its center. In the eastern region, the VLBI maser emission is situated on the border of the MERLIN maser emission. Since the MERLIN maser and bulk of the continuum coincide within $``$0.07 arcsec, and the possible supernovae are situated in the area between the two VLBI maser components (Smith et al., 1998), they lie in the area of the MERLIN continuum emission.

Unfortunately, this registration of the different components in Arp 220 requires a revision of the alignment suggested by Mundell et al. (2001) (see their figure 8). We are confident that our alignment is correct, as we extracted both the continuum and line images of Figure 4 from the same dataset performing the same self calibration. This may, to some degree, affect their conclusions regarding the location of the supernovae within their tilted disc model.

#### 4.1.1 Eastern Region

If we assume that the MERLIN 1.6 GHz continuum emission coincides with the 1.4 GHz continuum emission (Mundell et al., 2001), then all 1.6 GHz continuum, 1.4 GHz, 1.3 mm (Sakamoto et al., 1999) and 4.8 GHz (Baan & Haschick, 1995) come from the same area, as does the HI absorption (Mundell et al., 2001) and CO emission (Sakamoto et al., 1999). Weak, tentatively detected supernovae are also situated there.

The MERLIN maser emission coincides with the continuum in the eastern component. The VLBI maser emission lies in regions with no obvious compact continuum background; it does not cover all the area covered by the MERLIN maser but is instead situated on the edge of this area having a face-on disk-like appearance. It is probably saturated; the lower limit of the amplification factor is 110 for the northern and 65 for the southern region (for the 1667 MHz line). However, the OH radical is present throughout the whole area, as exemplified by the detection of OH absorption.

#### 4.1.2 Western Region

In the western region, the MERLIN 1.6 GHz, the 1.4 GHz, 4.8 GHz and 1.3 mm continuum emission come from the same area as the CO emission and HI absorption. The strong supernovae are situated there, close to the northern border, probably assisting the young OB stars in heating the dust grains. The position of the OH maser emission is however different. Both MERLIN and VLBI demonstrate that it arises from regions north and south of the continuum. The lower limit for the amplification factor (derived from the VLBI data) is 125 for the compact northern region, 45 for the southern diffuse region and 90 for the compact region on its southwest border, so that the two compact regions are very likely to be saturated. OH is present at some level throughout the western region; we can see some maser emission lying in front of two supernovae northeast and northwest from the diffuse maser region. However, the amplification factors at the line peaks in front of the supernovae are very small, 4.6$`\pm `$0.7 and 3.3$`\pm `$0.3 respectively. This means that they lie in the area of diffuse, low-amplifying OH gas, which we only can detect in those regions with significant continuum radiation. Observations with better sensitivity will be able to detect more sources of this kind and so study the properties of the diffuse OH in some detail.

### 4.2 Velocity Gradiens

Figure 6 shows the moment map taken from the MERLIN data. There is a clear velocity gradient of (0.32$`\pm `$0.03) km s-1pc-1 in the eastern region, at a position angle of 35.5°. Mundell et al. (2001) find (1.01$`\pm `$0.02) km s-1pc-1 for the HI at a PA of $``$55°. If we assume that the OH arises from a circular rotating disc, its radius is (79$`\pm `$5) pc and its dynamical mass is (12$`\pm `$3)$`\times `$106M. This is smaller by a factor of 90 than the mass of 1.1$`\times `$109M calculated from HI absorption. This large difference may be explained if the OH gas lies in the inner part of the disk and the HI and CO arise in the outer part. This disc may be warped, explaining the difference in position angle between the OH and HI gradients.

Mundell et al. (2001) and Sakamoto et al. (1999) find a clear velocity gradient in HI and CO in the western region of Arp 220, in a roughly horizontal direction. In the MERLIN image of the OH (Figure 6) we can see some velocity structure in the southwestern component, although a gradient is not clearly visible and in the northwestern component no gradient is detectable. However, the VLBI moment maps of Figures 7a and 7b (of the northern and southern region respectively) show that the southern component has a roughly E-W velocity gradient of (18.67$`\pm `$0.12) km s-1pc-1 (Figure 8). The region from which this gradient arises is on the southern border of the region that contains the HI and CO gradient and its diameter is (5.9$`\pm `$0.5) pc. If this gas was in rotation, the enclosed mass would be (1.7$`\pm `$0.4)$`\times `$107M. The velocity gradient we measure is $``$20 times greater and the mass is $``$10 times smaller than that measured using HI absorption (0.83$`\pm `$0.02) km s-1pc-1 and 1.7$`\times `$108M respectively. A plausible explanation is that the OH is confined in a region of much smaller physical extent than the HI, in the center of the molecular disk. However, in comparison to the eastern region the mass is concentrated in the centre of the disk and that gives rise to the very high velocity gradient. Such a disk is however not well confined, so we cannot derive reliable results about the mass or determine how the density decreases with distance.

The northwestern component shows a very strange velocity structure. On the MERLIN scales no obvious structure is detected, whereas the VLBI structure can be seen in Figure 9. If we accept that the systemic velocity of this region is $``$5355 km s-1 (ie. the velocity of the central part of Figure 7a), then the region just outside and on both sides of the centre is blueshifted and it becomes redshifted as we go further out. Two possible explanations are proposed to explain this structure, the first being that the masing gas experiences spiral outflow within a cone, thus exhibiting an expanding helix structure (Figure 10). The problem with this configuration is that the velocity structure is symmetrical, so that one helix would be a mirror image of the other. Alternatively, there might be outgoing and ingoing spherical shock-waves producing the redshifted and blueshifted velocities (Figure 11). The observation of an elongated structure would be due to beaming effects.

To distinguish between these two proposed or other possible structures and investigate the nature of the central region higher spatial resolution observations have to be obtained, or a better signal-to-noise ratio has to be achieved. We will then be able to examine the velocity structure further away from the central point to see if it continues to be redshifted or instead becomes blueshifted again, something which would favor the outflow scenario.

### 4.3 Is There Still Room for an AGN?

When OH megamasers were first discovered, the question of whether a starburst or an AGN were providing the essential energy was raised. The discovery of RSNe in Arp 220 (Smith et al., 1998) answers this question in favour of the starburst. Luminous radio supernovae or nested supernovae remnants have since been tentatively detected in a number of OHMs (Mrk 273 (Carilli & Taylor, 2000), IRAS 17028-0014 (Momjian et al., 2003 in preparation), Mrk 231 Taylor et al. (1999) and IIIZw35 (Philström et al., 2001)) linking the megamaser phenomenon with a nuclear starburst. The infrared luminosity is thought to arise from the vast amount of dust resulting from merging phenomena heated from young massive stars, whereas the radio continuum comes from relativistic electrons (partially generated from young stars and partially from supernova explosions) being accelerated by magnetic fields, so there is a correlation between the radio and the infrared fluxes (Bressan, Silva & Granato, 2002).

An interesting common feature common of OH megamasers is that the emission comes from regions with clear velocity gradients, interpreted as molecular discs or torii. This is evident in Arp 220 (this paper), IIIZw35 (Philström et al., 2001), IRAS 17028-0014 (Momjian et al., 2003 in preparation), Mrk 273 (Yates et al., 2000) and Mrk 231 (Carilli, Wrobel & Ulvestad, 1998). The formation of such a disc (or torus) is modeled by Barnes (2002) for merging gas-rich galaxies and a similar torus seems to be in agreement with high-resolution data of IIIZw35 (Philström et al., 2001). Given the high column densities of these regions (8$`\times `$1019 Ts(K) $`<`$NH$`<`$ 2.4$`\times `$1020 Ts(K) cm-2 for Arp 220 HI (Mundell et al., 2001)) they can obscure low luminosity AGN. Indirect evidence in the form of a radio jet in Mrk 231 suggests that it hosts an AGN (Ulvestad et al., 1999). Compact hard X-ray sources in the nuclei of Arp 220 (Clements et al., 2002) and Mrk 273 (Xia et al., 2002) suggest that there is an active nucleus in those galaxies. The existence of an AGN in OHM galaxies may well be a random phenomenon not associated with their masing properties, however statistical analysis of masing and non-masing LIRGs by Darling & Giovanelli (2002) reveals that LIRGs that host OH megamasers tend to be of infrared excess compared to those that don’t. This means that there is another process taking place which contributes to the infrared flux and not the radio continuum. This can be a hidden AGN or a very recent starburst, which has not yet produced supernovae and relativistic electrons, OH megamasers can work as tracer for this kind of phenomena. To distinguish between the two possibilities one needs to model violent and sudden starbursts to check if the time scales until it starts contributing to the radio flux can explain the ratio of OHMs among LIRGs. Alternatively, a large number of OHMs and host galaxies should be observed with high sensitivity to determine if they host compact regions, candidates for hosting an AGN.

## 5 Summary

Imaging of both the continuum and spectral line (OH) emission of Arp 220 using the same dataset has revealed the correct relative positions of its components. In the eastern radio nucleus the continuum and spectral emission coincide, whereas in the western the continuum is situated between the two spectral line emission peaks. On VLBI scales the continuum emission is in the form of several point sources, probably radio supernovae (Smith et al., 1998) in the same position as the MERLIN emission.

On large (MERLIN) scales the maser emission comes from three main regions, two western and one eastern. The eastern region has a very clear velocity gradient, showing rotation of the nuclear disc, if we follow the standard model (Sakamoto et al., 1999; Mundell et al., 2001). The velocity gradient we measure is significantly smaller than that found using HI absorption (Mundell et al., 2001). This may mean that the OH rotates inside the HI on large scales.

On smaller (VLBI) scales the OH maser emission has peculiar characteristics. In both nuclear regions the 1667 MHz line is emitted from regions of very small physical extent, whereas the 1665 MHz line seems to be of a more extended nature, coming from the overall region. Even on MERLIN scales (several hundred milliarcseconds) its location and structure could not be reliably determined. The most luminous maser is situated in the northwestern region and its velocity structure (Figure 9) implies that it either has a cone-like structure, which could be the result of molecular outflow from the central region or that it is produced by a pair of ingoing and outgoing shock fronts.

The issue of compact continuum structures in Arp 220 still remains open. Although a starburst, as exemplified by the existence of radio supernovae, can explain Arp 220s bolometric luminosity (Smith et al., 1998), the hard X-Ray emission spectrum and spatial distribution show that they are unlikely to be its main power source and other alternatives are proposed, for example several Ultra-Luminous X-Ray sources (ULX) or one (or several) low-mass AGN (Clements et al., 2002). The very high velocity gradient found in the southwestern maser (Figure 7b) marks it as a possible candidate to host a ULX or a low mass ($`1.7\times 10^7M_{}`$) AGN. The sites of the radio supernovae are of very small extent and show very faint maser emission, so it is not feasible to study velocity gradients in these regions. Long time monitoring and analysis of their light curves is needed for their properties to be revealed in detail.

## Acknowledgments

MERLIN is a national facility operated by the University of Manchester at Jodrell Bank Observatory on behalf of PPARC.

E. Rovilos would like to thank the Greek State Scholarships Foundation, without its financial support this work would not have been possible. We thank Al Stirling and Rob Beswick for useful discussions.