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# Spectral flow of the Dirac spectrum in intersecting vortices11footnote 1supported by DFG under grant-No. DFG-Re 856/5-1

## 1 Introduction

Center vortices offer an appealing picture of confinement , for a recent review see . Furthermore, the deconfinement phase transition can be understood as a depercolation transition  and the free energy of a center vortex vanishes in the confinement regime . In fact there is mounting evidence that center vortices play an important rôle in the QCD vacuum. Lattice calculations show that when center vortices are removed from the Yang-Mills ensemble the string tension  as well as the quark condensate and topological charge  are lost222In fact the finding of the lattice calculation concerning string tension and deconfinement phase transition can be reproduced in a center vortex model .. This indicates that confinement, spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry and the chiral anomaly are all triggered by center vortex configurations in the Yang-Mills vacuum. Furthermore, lattice calculations  show that restoration of chiral symmetry occurs at finite temperature exactly at the deconfinement phase transition. We can therefore expect that confinement and spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry are related phenomena. While the emergence of the confining potential, i.e. the string tension, as well as the appearance of the deconfinement phase transition can be rather easily understood in a random center vortex model in an analytic fashion, the mechanism of spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry has not been explained in the vortex picture of the QCD vacuum, yet. The general folklore is that spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry is generated by the quasi-zero modes in topologically non-trivial field configurations, which give rise to a quasi continuous Dirac spectrum with non-zero level density $`\rho (0)`$ at zero virtuality and, by the Banks Casher relation, to a non-zero quark condensate $`<qq>\rho (0)`$. In fact these calculations  show, that a non-zero level density at zero virtuality occurs in the confinement phase while a finite gap in the Dirac spectrum is found above the critical temperature.

It is therefore clear that the topological properties of center vortices and their manifestation in the quark spectrum will play the key rôle in the understanding of spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry in the center vortex picture of the QCD vacuum. In $`D=4`$ space-time dimensions center vortices represent closed surfaces of quantized electromagnetic flux which produce a non-trivial center element for a Wilson loop when they are topologically non-trivially linked to the latter . The topological charge of center vortices is given by their (oriented) intersection number . According to the index theorem a non-zero topological charge implies zero modes of the Dirac operator . In  the quark zero modes in transversally intersecting vortex surfaces have been studied. It was found that these modes are localized at the vortex sheets, in particular at their intersection points. In $`D=3`$ dimensions a center vortex represents generically a time-dependent closed flux loop. In  it was shown that the topological charge of generic center vortices can be expressed by the temporal change of their writhing number, and furthermore transversal intersection points in $`D=4`$ correspond to crossing of vortex lines in $`D=3`$. Thus vortex crossings carry topological charge and by the index theorem should consequently manifest themselves in the quark spectrum.

In this paper we study the quark spectrum in the background of time-dependent crossing center vortices. In particular we investigate how the crossing of vortices manifests itself in the quark spectrum. This might bring some light on the mechanism of spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry in the vortex picture, since it is believed that chiral symmetry breaking is tightly related to the topological properties of gauge fields.

Throughout this paper the space-time-manifold is chosen to be the four-torus $`𝕋^4`$. There is a variety of reasons for studying $`𝕋^4`$: first, $`𝕋^4`$ allows to use the Atiyah-Singer index theorem in a stringent fashion and allows for normalizable spinors in the background of integer flux. Second, the torus simulates a periodic arrangement of vortices. This is much closer to a percolated vortex cluster than two isolated vortices in $`^4`$. Finally, the torus is the space-time manifold that is also used in lattice calculations.

The quark spectrum and its spectral flow in time-dependent background gauge fields have been addressed in several publications before, e.g. . In these papers strict relations between the spectral flow of the Dirac Hamiltonian and topological properties of the corresponding background gauge field have been derived in Minkowski space-time. In  the spectral flow was considered on an infinite time interval, where the background gauge field has to become a pure gauge at $`t=\mathrm{}`$ and $`t=+\mathrm{}`$. In  only spherically symmetric gauge fields have been examined, but the derived results are also valid on a finite time interval. In this paper we analyze the spectral flow in the presence of intersecting center vortices on a compact Euclidean space-time manifold. The present paper is a continuation of ref.  where the quark zero modes in intersecting center vortex sheets were considered. In the present paper we will not confine ourselves to the quark zero modes but study the spectral flow as function of the Euclidean time for the time-dependent vortex crossings. From studying the spectral flow we hope to get some insight into the mechanism which produces the quasi-continuous spectrum of Dirac states near zero virtuality. As a byproduct we will also establish a strict relation between the quark zero modes and the (time-dependent) eigenfunctions of the Dirac Hamiltonian in the case where the background fields consist of “vortices” with homogeneously spread out magnetic flux.

The organization of the paper is as follows: In the next section we consider the mathematical idealization of infinitely thick transversally intersecting vortices, i.e. we consider “vortices” which are homogeneously distributed over the transversal dimensions, so that they represent homogeneous field configurations of constant electromagnetic flux. We consider two orthogonally homogeneously distributed fluxes, which can be considered as two infinitely thick intersecting vortices, where the intersection “point” is smeared out over the whole universe. Accordingly the topological charge is homogeneously distributed over space-time. We will study then the eigenmodes of the Dirac Hamiltonian as function of the adiabatic time-evolution of the vortex flux assuming that the three-space is given by a three-torus. In section 3 we study the opposite case of thin transversally intersecting vortices assuming that the two intersecting vortices are orthogonal to each other. We study the spectral flow of the quarks in this vortex background. Finally in section 4 we allow the intersecting vortex sheets to be non-orthogonal and calculate again the spectral flow of the quarks. Some concluding remarks are given in section 5.

## 2 Fermions in homogeneously intersecting “vortex” fields

The topological charge of a gauge field configuration

$`\nu `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \mathrm{tr}F\stackrel{~}{F}}`$ (2.1)
consisting of center vortices is located at the intersection points of the vortices . In  the evolution in time of the topological charge of crossing center vortex configuration has been studied. It is the aim of this paper to investigate the spectral flow of the Dirac Hamiltonian in the background of crossing vortices.

As space-time manifold we choose the four-torus $`𝕋^4`$. It can be seen as $`^4`$ modulo the lattice

$$𝕃^4=\left\{x^4\right|x=\underset{\mu }{}n_\mu e_\mu ,n_\mu \},$$

where $`\{e_\mu \},\mu =1,\mathrm{},4`$ are four orthogonal basis vectors with lengths $`L_\mu =|e_\mu |`$.

To demonstrate how the spectral flow emerges for intersecting center vortices we start with the following $`SU(2)`$ gauge field configuration on the four-torus $`𝕋^4`$

$`A_1=2\pi ix_2/(L_1L_2)\tau _3,A_2=0,A_3=2\pi ix_4/(L_3L_4)\tau _3,A_4=0.`$ (2.2)
This gauge potential describes two intersecting “vortices” whose fluxes are spread out over the whole $`x_1`$-$`x_2`$\- and $`x_3`$-$`x_4`$-, respectively, planes. Indeed, this configuration has constant non-zero field strength components

$$F_{12}=2\pi i/(L_1L_2)\tau _3,F_{34}=2\pi i/(L_3L_4)\tau _3$$
(2.3)
so that their fluxes are given by

$`{\displaystyle d\mathrm{\Sigma }_{12}F_{12}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{L_1}}dx_1A_1(x_2=L_2)=i2\pi \tau _3,`$ (2.4)
$`{\displaystyle d\mathrm{\Sigma }_{34}F_{34}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{L_3}}dx_3A_3(x_4=L_4)=i2\pi \tau _3,`$ (2.5)
which is twice the flux of a center vortex. The line integrals appearing here represent the only non-vanishing contributions from the Wilson loops encircling the whole $`x_1`$-$`x_2`$\- and $`x_3`$-$`x_4`$-plane, respectively, see fig. 2.

We choose the flux of these configurations to be twice the flux of a center vortex since a single center vortex cannot be accommodated by the torus with fermions in the fundamental representation of the gauge group, see the discussion given below eq. (2.9).

Furthermore, the configuration (2.2) carries topological charge $`\nu =2`$ which is homogeneously distributed over space-time, i.e. the intersection “point” of these two very fat vortices is smeared out over the whole space-time. The gauge potential (2.2) satisfies the boundary conditions

$`A_\nu (x+e_\mu )`$ $`=`$ $`A_\nu ^{U_\mu }(x)=U_\mu (x)A_\nu (x)U_\mu ^1(x)+U_\mu (x)_\nu U_\mu ^1(x),`$ (2.7)
where the transition functions $`U_\mu `$ can be chosen as follows:

$$U_1=U_3=\mathrm{𝟙},U_2=\mathrm{exp}(2\pi ix_1/L_1\tau _3),U_4=\mathrm{exp}(2\pi ix_3/L_3\tau _3).$$
(2.8)
In general the transition functions have to fulfill the cocycle condition

$`U_\nu (x+e_\mu )U_\mu (x)Z_{\mu \nu }=U_\mu (x+e_\nu )U_\nu (x),`$ (2.9)
where $`Z_{\mu \nu }`$ are elements from the center of the gauge group. Throughout this paper we consider fermions in the fundamental representation of $`SU(2)`$. This implies that all $`Z_{\mu \nu }`$ are equal to $`\mathrm{𝟙}`$, because fermions in the fundamental representation cannot tolerate twisted boundary conditions which imply the presence of a single center vortex. For later use we also note that under a gauge transformation $`A_\mu A_\mu ^V`$ the transition functions transform

$$U_\mu ^V(x)=V(x+e_\mu )U_\mu (x)V(x)^1.$$
(2.10)
Furthermore, since our gauge configuration (2.2) satisfies the Weyl gauge $`A_4=0`$ its topological charge (2.1) can be expressed in terms of the (in general non-Abelian) Chern-Simons action $`S_{\mathrm{C}S}(x_4)`$ as

$$\nu =_0^{L_4}dx_4_4S_{\mathrm{C}S}(x_4).$$
(2.11)
For well localized center vortices (representing closed flux loops in $`D=3`$) the Chern-Simons action is nothing but their writhing number . For the particular gauge potential (2.2) the Chern-Simons action reduces to

$$S_{\mathrm{C}S}(x_4)=\frac{1}{4\pi ^2}_{𝕋^3}\mathrm{tr}(A_3F_{12})\mathrm{d}^3x=2\frac{x_4}{L_4}:=2\tau $$
(2.12)
so that eq. (2.11) yields indeed $`\nu =2`$ when the vortex evolves from $`\tau =0`$ to $`\tau =1`$.

We are interested in the time-evolution of fermions in the intersecting center vortex background described by the gauge potential (2.2). Specifically we want to study the time-evolution of the spectrum of the three dimensional Dirac-Hamiltonian

$$H(\tau )\psi =E(\tau )\psi ,$$

i.e. the Dirac energies $`E(\tau )`$ as function of the dimensionless time $`\tau `$.

The Dirac Hamiltonian of a massless fermion reads333The representation of the Dirac matrices used in this paper can be found in Appendix A.

$$H=\gamma _4\gamma _i\mathrm{D}_i=\left(\begin{array}{cc}i\sigma _i\mathrm{D}_i& 0\\ 0& i\sigma _i\mathrm{D}_i\end{array}\right),$$
(2.13)
where $`\mathrm{D}_i=_i+A_i`$ is the covariant derivative. Under gauge transformations $`AA^V`$ the Dirac spinors in the fundamental representation of $`SU(2)`$ transform as

$$\psi (x)\psi ^V(x)=V(x)\psi (x).$$
(2.14)
In view of equation (2.7) this implies the following boundary conditions for fermionic fields

$$\psi (x+e_\mu )=U_\mu (x)\psi (x).$$
(2.15)
Because the gauge potential (2.2) and the transition functions (2.8) are purely Abelian the two color components of the fermionic field decouple from each other. Therefore it is sufficient to consider only one of the two color components, i.e. we restrict ourselves to spinors with the lower color component equal zero. To get the desired results for spinors with the opposite color one has to change the sign of the energy and to exchange the upper with the lower color component. If not stated otherwise, in the following we will always consider the upper color component of the Dirac field.

Coming back to the Dirac spectrum one first observes that it is invariant under the shift $`\tau \tau +1`$. This is because the two corresponding gauge potentials are related by the periodic gauge transformation $`V=\mathrm{exp}(2\pi ix_3/L_3\tau _3)`$ which leaves the above introduced transition functions $`U_{1/2/3}`$ invariant, see eq. (2.10).

Since $`H`$ commutes with $`\gamma _5`$ the eigenvectors of $`H`$ can be chosen as eigenvectors of $`\gamma _5`$. Hence the eigenvectors of $`H`$ carry good chirality. It remains to find the eigenvectors $`\overline{\psi }`$ of the Dirac operator

$$\mathrm{D}/_{(3)}=i\sigma _i\mathrm{D}_i,\mathrm{D}/_{(3)}\overline{\psi }=E\overline{\psi }$$
(2.16)
in three dimensions. Because of the periodicity in the $`3`$-direction ($`U_3=\mathrm{𝟙}`$) one can make the ansatz

$$\overline{\psi }_n(x_1,x_2,x_3)=\stackrel{~}{\psi }_n(x_1,x_2)\mathrm{exp}(2\pi inx_3/L_3).$$

Inserting this ansatz into the eigenvalue equation (2.16) the latter reduces to the eigenvalue problem

$`(\mathrm{D}/_{(2)}+\overline{E}_n\sigma _3)\stackrel{~}{\psi }_n=\lambda \stackrel{~}{\psi }_n,\overline{E}_n=2\pi {\displaystyle \frac{\tau +n}{L_3}},`$ (2.17)
where $`\mathrm{D}/_{(2)}=i(\sigma _1\mathrm{D}_1+\sigma _2\mathrm{D}_2)`$ is the massless Dirac operator in two dimensions. For the gauge potential (2.2) the eigenvectors and eigenvalues of $`\mathrm{D}/_{(2)}`$ are known :

$$\mathrm{D}/_{(2)}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_m=\stackrel{~}{E}_m\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_m,\stackrel{~}{E}_m=\mathrm{sign}(m)\sqrt{\frac{4\pi m}{L_1L_2}},m.$$
(2.18)
According to the index theorem for Abelian gauge fields in $`D=2`$ dimensions, (for each color component) there is exactly one zero mode of $`\mathrm{D}/_{(2)}`$, namely $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{m=0}`$. This zero mode is left handed, i.e. only the lower component of this two-spinor is non-zero. Therefore, the two-spinor $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{nm=0}=\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{m=0}(x_1,x_2)\mathrm{exp}(2\pi inx_3/L_3)`$ is eigenvector of $`\mathrm{D}/_{(3)}`$ with eigenvalue $`\overline{E}_n`$, see eq. (2.17). The explicit form of the function $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{m=0}`$ is written down in eq. (B.4). For $`m0`$ the eigenvectors $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_n`$ (2.17) are given by linear combinations of $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_m`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_m`$

$$\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{nm}=\alpha _{nm}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_m+\beta _{nm}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_m$$

Putting this ansatz into eq. (2.17) and noting that444This is because $`\mathrm{D}/_{(2)}`$ and $`\sigma _3`$ anti-commute. $`\sigma _3\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_m=\varphi _m`$ one gets the following eigenvalue problem for the vector $`(\alpha _{nm},\beta _{nm})`$:

$`\left(\begin{array}{cc}\stackrel{~}{E}_m& \overline{E}_n\\ \overline{E}_n& \stackrel{~}{E}_m\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\alpha _{nm}\\ \beta _{nm}\end{array}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`E_{nm}\left(\begin{array}{c}\alpha _{nm}\\ \beta _{nm}\end{array}\right).`$ (2.25)
This eigenvalue problem has for fixed $`(n,m)`$ two solutions:

$`E_{nm}`$ $`=`$ $`\pm \sqrt{\stackrel{~}{E}_{m}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+\overline{E}_{n}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}},`$ (2.26)
where the sign is given by the sign of $`\stackrel{~}{E}_m`$. One of the two solutions corresponds to positive $`m`$ and the other to negative $`m`$. Therefore we set $`E_{nm}=\stackrel{~}{E}_m\sqrt{1+(\overline{E}_n/\stackrel{~}{E}_m)^2},m0`$. The corresponding coefficients $`\alpha _{nm}`$ and $`\beta _{nm}`$ can be calculated from (2.25).

Using the tensor product notation $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }\chi _l`$ for right handed ($`l=1`$) and left handed ($`l=2`$) four-spinors

$$\stackrel{~}{\varphi }\chi _1=\left(\begin{array}{c}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }\\ 0\\ 0\end{array}\right),\stackrel{~}{\varphi }\chi _2=\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 0\\ \stackrel{~}{\varphi }\end{array}\right),$$
(2.27)
the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the Dirac Hamiltonian $`H`$ (2.13) can be written as

$$E_{mnl}=(1)^l\left\{\begin{array}{cc}\stackrel{~}{E}_m\sqrt{1+\frac{4\pi ^2(n+\tau )^2}{L_3^2\stackrel{~}{E}_{m}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}},\hfill & m0\hfill \\ \frac{2\pi }{L_3}(n+\tau ),\hfill & m=0\hfill \end{array}\right\},$$
(2.28)
$`\psi _{nml}`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\alpha _{nm}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_m+\beta _{nm}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_m\right)\chi _le^{(2\pi inx_3/L_3)},m,n,m0,l=1,2,`$ (2.29)
$`\psi _{n0l}`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_0\chi _le^{(2\pi inx_3/L_3)},n,l=1,2.`$ (2.30)
Obviously, only the $`m=0`$ level can cross zero energy. As the time $`\tau `$ evolves from $`\tau =0`$ to $`\tau =1`$ the left handed ($`l=2,m=0`$) modes show a spectral flow from positive to negative energy and the right handed ($`l=1,m=0`$) modes from negative to positive energy, and there is a level crossing through zero energy for $`n=\tau `$, see fig. 2. The eigenmodes of the lower color component show the opposite behavior.

Semi-classically, one can interpret the spectral flow induced by the time-evolution $`\tau \tau +1`$ as the creation of a (right handed) particle and a (left handed) anti-particle, i.e. the number of right-handed particles increases by $`2`$. Correspondingly the Chern-Simons action $`S_{\mathrm{C}S}(\tau )`$ changes by $`2`$.

The probability density of the spinor $`\psi _{n=0,m=0,l=2}`$ is plotted in fig. 3 for fixed $`x_3`$. This density is independent of $`x_3`$ and of the adiabatic parameter $`\tau `$. The probability density has a zero and, obviously, breaks the translational invariance of the field strength555This phenomenon is already known from the localized Landau orbits in a constant magnetic field. (2.3). In  it has been shown that the position of this zero can be moved by adding a constant background gauge potential which does not change the field strength and the boundary conditions.

Let us now come back to the Dirac operator on the four-torus. From the index theorem in $`D=4`$ it is known that there is exactly one left handed zero mode $`\psi _0`$ of the Dirac operator with the above defined gauge potential. This zero mode can be explicitly written down  and is given in appendix B. One can show that this zero mode $`\psi _0`$ can be written as the sum over all left handed eigenmodes $`\psi _{nml}`$ of the Dirac Hamiltonian $`H`$ which cross zero energy as the time $`\tau `$ passes from $`\tau =\mathrm{}`$ to $`\tau =+\mathrm{}`$, which are the states with the quantum numbers $`m=0,l=2`$. The time dependence of a solution $`\xi _{n0l}=f_{n0l}(x_4)\psi _{n0l}`$ of the (Euclidean) time-dependent Dirac equation

$$_4\xi _{n0l}=H\xi _{n0l}$$
(2.31)
is given by

$`_4f_{n0l}(x_4)`$ $`=`$ $`E_{n0l}f_{n0l}(x_4),`$ (2.32)
$`f_{n0l}(x_4)`$ $`=`$ $`C_{n0l}\mathrm{exp}\left\{(1)^l\pi {\displaystyle \frac{L_4}{L_3}}\left(n+{\displaystyle \frac{x_4}{L_4}}\right)^2\right\}.`$ (2.33)
The right-handed ($`l=1`$) solutions are exponentially growing for $`x_4\pm \mathrm{}`$ whereas the left-handed solutions ($`l=2`$) are exponentially decreasing. Therefore one can construct a solution which is quasi-periodic666The solution will be periodic under $`x_4x_4+L_4`$ up to a gauge transformation with the transition function $`U_4`$, see eq. (2.8). in $`x_4`$ from the left-handed solutions $`\xi _{n02}`$ by a simple summation over all modes $`n`$, putting $`C_{n02}=1,n`$:

$`\psi (x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}\xi _{n02}(x)=\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_0(x_1,x_2)\chi _2{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}\mathrm{exp}\left\{\pi {\displaystyle \frac{L_4}{L_3}}\left(n+{\displaystyle \frac{x_4}{L_4}}\right)^22\pi in{\displaystyle \frac{x_3}{L_3}}\right\}`$ (2.34)
$`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_0(x_1,x_2)\chi _2\mathrm{exp}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{\pi x_4^2}{L_3L_4}}\right\}{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}\mathrm{exp}\left\{\pi {\displaystyle \frac{L_4}{L_3}}n^22\pi in\left({\displaystyle \frac{x_3}{L_3}}i{\displaystyle \frac{x_4}{L_3}}\right)\right\}`$
$`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_0(x_1,x_2)\chi _2\mathrm{exp}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{\pi x_4^2}{L_3L_4}}\right\}\overline{\theta ({\displaystyle \frac{x_3}{L_3}}+i{\displaystyle \frac{x_4}{L_3}},i{\displaystyle \frac{L_4}{L_3}})}.`$
Here $`\theta (z,i\xi )`$ is the theta function which is defined in eq. (A.11) Comparing with eqs. (B.4,B.5) one observes that this is precisely the zero mode $`\psi _0`$ of the Dirac operator on the four-torus. In the limit $`L_4/L_31`$ and $`|x_4/L_4|1`$ the part of the sum in eq. (2.34) with $`n=0`$ dominates, i.e. the sum can be approximated by $`1`$. Neglecting the $`x_4`$ dependence one obtains the eigenvector $`\psi _{002}`$ which crosses zero energy for $`x_4=0`$, i.e. the zero mode on the four-torus approximates the time-evolution of that adiabatic eigenvector of $`H`$ who crosses zero energy during the evolution. One reason for getting the strict relation (2.34) between the zero mode on $`𝕋^4`$ and the eigenmodes of the Dirac-Hamiltonian on $`𝕋^3`$ is that the eigenstates $`\psi _{n02}`$ are independent of $`x_4`$. Therefore the adiabatic approximation becomes exact and the $`x_4`$ dependent adiabatic solutions of the stationary Dirac equation are exact zero modes of the Dirac equation on $`𝕋^3\times `$.

## 3 Spectral flow for orthogonally intersecting vortices

In this chapter we consider two thin but smeared out vortices carrying both twice the flux of a center vortex in $`SU(2)`$. We choose one vortex to be parallel to the $`x_3`$-$`x_4`$ plane and located at $`x_1=x_1^{(0)},x_2=x_2^{(0)}`$ and the other parallel to the $`x_1`$-$`x_2`$ plane and located at $`x_3=x_3^{(0)},x_4=x_4^{(0)}`$. The gauge potential of these two vortices can be written down in terms of theta functions . To this end one introduces complex variables $`u,v`$:

$`\begin{array}{ccccccc}\hfill u& =& \left(x_1+ix_2\right)/L_1\hfill & ,& \hfill u^{(0)}& =& \left(x_1^{(0)}+ix_2^{(0)}\right)/L_1,\hfill \\ \hfill v& =& \left(x_3+ix_4\right)/L_3\hfill & ,& \hfill v^{(0)}& =& \left(x_3^{(0)}+ix_4^{(0)}\right)/L_3.\hfill \end{array}`$ (3.3)
In terms of the new variable $`u`$ the gauge potential $`A^{(1)}`$ corresponding to the first vortex reads

$`A_1^{(1)}=i_2\varphi (u,u^{(0)},\tau _{12}),A_2^{(1)}=i_1\varphi (u,u^{(0)},\tau _{12}),A_3^{(1)}=A_4^{(1)}=0,`$ (3.4)
where $`\tau _{\mu \nu }=L_\nu /L_\mu `$ and the profile function $`\varphi `$ is defined in terms of theta functions777Our conventions concerning theta functions can be found in appendix A.:

$`\varphi (u,u^{(0)},\tau _{12})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\mathrm{log}\left(\theta ^+(u,u^{(0)},\tau _{12})\overline{\theta ^+(u,u^{(0)},\tau _{12})}+\theta ^{}(u,u^{(0)},\tau _{12})\overline{\theta ^{}(u,u^{(0)},\tau _{12})}\right),`$
$`\theta ^\pm (u,u^{(0)},\tau _{12})`$ $`=`$ $`\theta (u+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\tau _{12}u^{(0)}\pm \epsilon ,i\tau _{12}),\epsilon _+.`$ (3.5)
The parameter $`\epsilon `$ is a measure for the thickness of the vortex, $`\epsilon ^2`$ is approximately the ratio between the transversal vortex extension and the area of the two torus. The gauge potential $`A^{(2)}`$ of the second vortex is analogously given by

$`A_3^{(2)}=i_4\varphi (v,v^{(0)},\tau _{34}),A_4^{(2)}=i_3\varphi (v,v^{(0)},\tau _{34}),A_1^{(2)}=A_2^{(2)}=0.`$ (3.6)
Obviously the gauge potential of the complete vortex configuration is given by the sum $`A=A^{(1)}+A^{(2)}`$. For the subsequent considerations it is important that the gauge potential of the first vortex is given by components $`A_1`$ and $`A_2`$ which are independent of $`x_3,x_4`$ and the gauge potential of the second one by components $`A_3`$ and $`A_4`$ which are independent of $`x_1,x_2`$. This means that the covariant derivatives $`\mathrm{D}_1`$ and $`\mathrm{D}_2`$ depend only on $`x_1,x_2`$ and the covariant derivative $`\mathrm{D}_3`$ depends only on $`x_3`$ and $`x_4`$. Under this assumption the spectrum of the Dirac operator $`\mathrm{D}/_{(3)}=i\sigma _k\mathrm{D}_k`$ in $`D=3`$ dimensions can be written down if the spectrum of the Dirac operator $`\mathrm{D}/_{(2)}=i(\sigma _1\mathrm{D}_1+\sigma _2\mathrm{D}_2)`$ on the two torus (spanned by the basis vectors $`e_1,e_2`$) is known.

One further remark is in order here. In Euclidean space-time the Dirac Hamiltonian (2.13) is usually calculated in the Weyl gauge $`A_4^W=0`$. It is possible to write down a gauge transformation $`V`$ which transforms the gauge potential given in eq. (3.6) into the Weyl gauge:

$$V(\stackrel{}{x},x_4)=𝒫\mathrm{exp}\left(_{t=0}^{t=x_4}A_4(\stackrel{}{x},t)dt\right),\stackrel{}{x}=(x_1,x_2,x_3),$$
(3.7)
where $`𝒫`$ denotes path ordering. The gauge transformation $`V`$ will not change the transition functions $`U_{1/2/3}`$, because $`A_4`$ and therefore also $`V`$ are Abelian and periodic in these three directions, cf. eq. (2.10). The gauge transformation $`V`$ will in general alter the transition function $`U_4`$. But the transformation of $`U_4`$ is irrelevant in this context, because we are only interested in the spectrum of the Dirac Hamiltonian at a constant time $`x_4`$. Therefore it makes no difference to calculate the eigenspinors and eigenvalues of $`H`$ in the original gauge given in eqs. (3.4-3.6) or in the Weyl gauge - the difference is simply a gauge transformation which is periodic in the spatial directions.

As in the case of constant field strength one can construct the eigenstates of $`H`$ with the help of the eigenstates $`\{\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_m,m\}`$ of the Dirac operator $`\mathrm{D}/_{(2)}=i(\sigma _1\mathrm{D}_1+\sigma _2\mathrm{D}_2)`$ with vortex background gauge potential on the two torus

$$\mathrm{D}/_{(2)}\varphi _m=\stackrel{~}{E}_m\varphi _m.$$

As before, from the index theorem in $`D=2`$ dimensions it follows that there is exactly one left handed zero mode for the upper color index of $`\mathrm{D}/_{(2)}`$ on the two torus, i.e. $`\stackrel{~}{E}_m=0`$, if and only if $`m=0`$ (c.f. eq. (2.18)). Assuming that the eigenstates $`\{\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_m\}`$ of $`\mathrm{D}/_{(2)}`$ are known one can make the ansatz (c.f. eq. (2.29,2.30))

$`\psi _{nml}`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\alpha _{nm}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_m+\beta _{nm}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_m\right)\chi _lh_n,m,n,m0,l=1,2,`$ (3.8)
$`\psi _{n0l}`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha _{n0}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_0\chi _lh_n,n,l=1,2,`$ (3.9)
where $`h_n`$ is an eigenfunction of $`i\mathrm{D}_3`$:

$$i\mathrm{D}_3h_n=\overline{E}_nh_n$$

which depends on $`x_3`$ and $`x_4`$. Noting the periodicity of $`h_n`$ (because $`U_3=\mathrm{𝟙}`$) one obtains the solution

$`h_n(x_3,x_4)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left\{2\pi in{\displaystyle \frac{x_3}{L_3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{x_3}{L_3}}{\displaystyle _0^{L_3}}dx_3^{}A_3(x_3^{},x_4){\displaystyle _0^{x_3}}dx_3^{}A_3(x_3^{},x_4)\right\},`$ (3.10)
$`\overline{E}_n`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi n}{L_3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{L_3}}{\displaystyle _0^{L_3}}dx_3^{}A_3(x_3^{}).`$ (3.11)
Inserting this ansatz into the stationary Dirac equation

$$H\psi _{nml}=E_{nml}\psi _{nml}$$

yields (as in the case of constant field strength considered before) the eigenvalue equation (2.25) for the eigenvectors $`(\alpha _{nm},\beta _{nm})`$ and the energies $`E_{nml}`$. The energy eigenvalues are given by

$`E_{nml}`$ $`=`$ $`(1)^l\left\{\begin{array}{cc}\stackrel{~}{E}_m\sqrt{1+(b/\stackrel{~}{E}_m)^2},\hfill & m0\hfill \\ b,\hfill & m=0\hfill \end{array}\right\},`$ (3.14)
$`b`$ $`=`$ $`2\pi {\displaystyle \frac{n}{L_3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{L_3}}{\displaystyle _0^{L_3}}dx_3A_3.`$ (3.15)
Obviously, only eigenvectors with $`m=0`$ can cross zero energy. The integral in eq. (3.15) is directly related to the field strength component $`F_{34}`$:

$`{\displaystyle _0^{L_3}}dx_3^{}A_3(x_3^{},x_4^{(1)})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{L_3}}dx_3^{}A_3(x_3^{},x_4^{(0)})+{\displaystyle _0^{L_3}}dx_3^{}{\displaystyle _{x_4^{(0)}}^{x_4^{(1)}}}dx_4^{}F_{43}(x_3^{},x_4^{}).`$ (3.16)
Therefore, one obtains

$`E_{n01}(x_4^{(1)})`$ $`=`$ $`E_{n01}(x_4^{(0)})(1)^l{\displaystyle \frac{i}{L_3}}{\displaystyle _0^{L_3}}dx_3^{}{\displaystyle _{x_4^{(0)}}^{x_4^{(1)}}}dx_4^{}F_{43}(x_3^{},x_4^{}),`$ (3.17)
i.e. the energy $`E_{n0l}(x_4)`$ changes most rapidly where the field strength is peaked and this is at the location of the vortex in the $`x_3`$-$`x_4`$ plane (which is of course the time where the two orthogonal vortices intersect on $`𝕋^4`$), see figs. 5 and 5.

It turns out that left handed ($`l=2`$) and right handed ($`l=1`$) spinors cross zero energy level starting from positive to negative energies and vice versa. The time $`x_4^{(0)}`$ for which the crossing through zero energy takes place can be shifted if one adds a constant to the gauge potential $`A_3`$. This addition of a constant will not change the field strength, but it can obviously change the time at which the zero energy crossing occurs. Therefore, the precise time $`x_4^{(0)}`$ of the level crossing seems to be irrelevant.

Obviously, in the case of crossing vortices the adiabatic approximation is (especially in the neighborhood of the vortex) not very good, because the eigenstates $`\psi _{nml}`$ depend strongly on $`x_4`$. Therefore in this case we do not have such a simple relation between the zero mode on the four-torus and the adiabatic eigenstates of the Dirac Hamiltonian, see eq. (2.34).

The probability density of the eigenvectors $`\psi _{nm2}`$ is independent of $`x_3`$ and of the adiabatic parameter $`x_4`$. In fig. 7 the probability density of the mode $`\psi _{002}`$ has been plotted for constant $`x_3`$. As in the case of constant field strength there is a zero of the density. But, in addition, here the density is peaked at the position of the vortex in the $`x_1x_2`$ plane.

It is easy to generalize the previous results to background fields consisting of more than two intersecting vortices. In what follows we consider one vortex parallel to the $`x_3`$-$`x_4`$ plane and located at $`x_1=x_1^{(0)},x_2=x_2^{(0)}`$ and a number $`M`$ of vortices and $`N`$ anti-vortices which are all parallel to the $`x_1`$-$`x_2`$ plane, located at $`x_3=x_3^{(k)},x_4=x_4^{(k)},k=1,\mathrm{},(M+N)`$, and carrying magnetic flux $`\varphi _k=\pm 2\pi `$. The topological charge of this configuration is given by the sum $`\nu =\frac{1}{2\pi }_k\varphi _k=MN`$ over the magnetic fluxes of the individual vortices piercing the $`x_3`$-$`x_4`$ plane. The gauge potential corresponding to these vortices is simply given by the sum over the gauge potentials of the individual vortices, see eq. (3.6). The eigenfunctions and eigenvalues of the Dirac Hamiltonian are given by eqs. (3.8-3.15) with gauge potential $`A_3`$ replaced by the corresponding expression of the multiple vortex configuration. The spectral flow is shown in fig. 7 for $`M=2`$ vortices and $`N=3`$ anti-vortices. Obviously, the gradient of the spectral flow is maximal at times $`x_4^{(k)}`$ where two vortices cross each other. The sign of the gradient depends on the flux of the particular vortex located at the time $`x_4^{(k)}`$, cf. eq. (3.17).

For a gas of orthogonally intersecting vortices the spectrum of the Dirac Hamiltonian fluctuates with time $`\tau `$, cf. eq. (3.14). For $`m=0`$ ($`\stackrel{~}{E}_m=0`$) the energy eigenvalue fluctuates around zero.

Let us now see how these fluctuations in the spectral flow manifest themselves in the spectrum of the $`D=4`$ Dirac operator. Considering a multi-vortex configuration as given above with $`M=N`$, i.e. with topological charge $`\nu =0`$. A numerical investigation shows that the module of the smallest eigenvalue of the $`D=4`$ Dirac operator decreases with increasing number of vortex-anti-vortex pairs. It seams that the fluctuations of the energy eigenvalues of the Dirac Hamiltonian lower the eigenvalue of the Dirac operator with smallest absolute value. It remains to be seen whether this observation can provide a mechanism to generate a non-zero level density at zero virtuality which is sufficient for spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry. This will be subject to further research.

## 4 Spectral flow for non-orthogonally intersecting vortices

As before we will consider a configuration on $`𝕋^4`$ which describes two intersecting center vortices. On a spatial torus $`𝕋^3`$ one vortex is static and parallel to the $`x_3`$-axis located at $`x_1=x_1^{(0)},x_2=x_2^{(0)}`$. The other vortex is time-dependent and parallel to the $`x_1`$-axis and located at $`x_3=x_3^{(0)},x_2=(L_2/L_4)x_4`$, see fig. 8. The two vortices intersect in $`𝕋^4`$ at $`x_\mu =x_\mu ^{(0)},\mu =1,\mathrm{},3,x_4=(L_4/L_2)x_2^{(0)}`$. The gauge potential of the second vortex can be constructed from the potential of a vortex which is originally parallel to the $`x_1x_2`$ plane by rotation in the $`x_2`$-$`x_4`$-plane. Note that the rotated vortex has magnetic and electric field strength (the original vortex only has an electric field strength). To write down the gauge potential of the vortex configuration one again introduces complex variables $`u,v`$:

$`\begin{array}{ccccccc}\hfill u& =& \left(x_1+ix_2\right)/L_1\hfill & ,& \hfill u^{(0)}& =& \left(x_1^{(0)}+ix_2^{(0)}\right)/L_1,\hfill \\ \hfill v& =& \left(x_3+i\left(x_4x_2\tau _{24}\right)\right)/L_3\hfill & ,& \hfill v^{(0)}& =& x_3^{(0)}/L_3.\hfill \end{array}`$ (4.3)
The gauge potential $`A^{(1)}`$ of the first vortex is again given by

$`A_1^{(1)}=i_2\varphi (u,u^{(0)},\tau _{12}),A_2^{(1)}=i_1\varphi (u,u^{(0)},\tau _{12}),A_3^{(1)}=A_4^{(1)}=0.`$ (4.4)
The gauge potential $`A^{(2)}`$ of the second (time-dependent) vortex is slightly more involved:

$`A_1=0,A_2=i\tau _{24}_3\varphi (v,v^{(0)},\tau _{34}),A_3=i_4\varphi (v,v^{(0)},\tau _{34}),A_4=i_3\varphi (v,v^{(0)},\tau _{34}).`$ (4.5)
The gauge field configuration $`A=A^{(1)}+A^{(2)}`$ has topological charge $`\nu =1`$ and the transition functions are given by

$`U_1=U_3=\mathrm{𝟙},U_2=\mathrm{exp}\left(2\pi i\left({\displaystyle \frac{x_1}{L_1}}+{\displaystyle \frac{x_3}{L_3}}\right)\right),U_4=\mathrm{exp}\left(2\pi i{\displaystyle \frac{x_3}{L_3}}\right).`$ (4.6)
In this case the eigenvectors of the Dirac Hamiltonian $`H`$ do not factorize as in the examples considered before. In a numerical study we obtained a spectral flow of left handed four-spinors from positive to negative energy in accordance with the existence of a left-handed zero mode of the Dirac operator in $`D=4`$, see fig. 9. From the figure 9 one can argue that (as in the case of orthogonally intersecting vortices) the largest gradient of the spectral flow with respect to time $`\tau `$ is where the vortices intersect, $`\tau =\tau _0`$, i.e. where the topological charge is localized. Further it seems that all eigenmodes cross zero energy level as time $`\tau `$ evolves from $`\mathrm{}`$ to $`+\mathrm{}`$. This is different from the case of orthogonally intersecting vortices considered before. There one has different branches in the spectral flow, compare eq. (3.14), and only eigenmodes with $`m=0`$ cross zero energy as time $`\tau `$ evolves from $`\mathrm{}`$ to $`+\mathrm{}`$.

The probability densities of the eigenvectors of the Dirac Hamiltonian again show an enhancement at the position of the vortices, see fig. 10.

## 5 Concluding remarks

We have studied the quark spectrum in the background of intersecting flat vortex sheets. Choosing the four-torus $`𝕋^4`$ as space-time manifold we have calculated the spectral flow of the Dirac Hamiltonian as function of time for intersecting vortex fields. The spectral flow as function of time $`\tau `$ has the largest gradient in the neighborhood of the vortex intersection point, i.e. where the topological charge is localized. For the infinitely thick intersecting “vortices” considered in section 2 this gradient is constant (see eq. (2.28)) reflecting the fact that in this case the topological charge is homogeneously distributed over space-time. These results are consistent with the findings of ref.  that zero modes of the 4-dimensional Dirac operator are localized at the intersection points of vortices. Also, the probability density of the quark eigenmodes of the Dirac Hamiltonian considered in the present paper show a strong correlation to the position of the vortex sheets. Depending on the energy level considered, the vortices seem to attract or repel the quarks. For the lowest lying states the probability density always shows an enhancement at the position of the vortices, i.e. the vortices “act attractively” on the quarks in these modes.

## 6 Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to O. Schröder for helpful discussions. This work has been supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft under grants DFG-Re 856/5-1.

## Appendix A Conventions

We choose the generators of the gauge group to be anti-hermitian. Therefore the components $`A_\mu `$ of the gauge potential are anti-hermitian, e.g. purely imaginary for the gauge group $`U(1)`$. The magnetic flux $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ through a closed loop $`𝒞`$ is defined by

$$\mathrm{\Phi }=\frac{1}{2\pi i}_𝒞A_\mu dx_\mu $$
(A.1)
and thus real valued.

We consider the Dirac equation in Euclidean space-time. In $`D=4`$ we use the chiral representation for the Dirac matrices:

$`\gamma _i`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& \sigma _i\\ \sigma _i& 0\end{array}\right),i=1,2,3,\gamma _4=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& i\mathrm{𝟙}\\ i\mathrm{𝟙}& 0\end{array}\right),`$ (A.6)
$`\gamma _5`$ $`=`$ $`\gamma _1\gamma _2\gamma _3\gamma _4=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{𝟙}& 0\\ 0& \mathrm{𝟙}\end{array}\right),`$ (A.9)
where $`\mathrm{𝟙}`$ is the $`2\times 2`$ unit matrix and $`\sigma _i`$ are the (hermitian) Pauli matrices.

The massless Dirac Hamiltonian $`H`$ in three dimensions reads

$$H=\gamma _4\gamma _i\mathrm{D}_i=\left(\begin{array}{cc}i\sigma _i\mathrm{D}_i& 0\\ 0& i\sigma _i\mathrm{D}_i\end{array}\right),$$
(A.10)
where $`\mathrm{D}_i=_i+A_i`$ is the covariant derivative.

In this paper we use the theta function conventions introduced in :

$$\theta (z,i\xi )=\underset{n}{}e^{\pi \xi n^2+2\pi inz},z,\xi _+.$$
(A.11)
These functions are analytic in $`z`$ and obey the periodicity properties

$$\theta (z+1,i\xi )=\theta (z,i\xi ),\theta (z+i\xi ,i\xi )=e^{\pi \xi 2\pi iz}\theta (z,i\xi ).$$
(A.12)
The only zeros of this function are at the points

$$z=(m+1/2)+(n+1/2)i\xi ,m,n.$$
(A.13)
## Appendix B Zero mode of the Dirac operator in $`D=4`$

We consider the gauge potential

$`A_1`$ $`=`$ $`2\pi ix_2/(L_1L_2),A_2=0,`$ (B.1)
$`A_3`$ $`=`$ $`2\pi ix_4/(L_3L_4),A_4=0`$ (B.2)
on the four-torus with transition functions

$$U_1=U_3=\mathrm{𝟙},U_2=\mathrm{exp}(2\pi ix_1/L_1),U_4=\mathrm{exp}(2\pi ix_3/L_3).$$
(B.3)
The topological charge of this configuration is $`1`$, i.e. there is one (left handed) zero mode of the corresponding Dirac operator which can be written down explicitly in terms of theta functions. To this end one introduces complex variables $`u:=(x_1+ix_2)/L_1,v:=(x_3+ix_4)/L_3`$ and positive real numbers $`\tau _{12}:=L_2/L_1,\tau _{34}:=L_4/L_3`$. The problem of finding the zero mode becomes a problem of finding the zero mode of the Dirac operator $`\mathrm{D}/_{(2)}=i\sigma _1D_1+i\sigma _2D_2`$ on the two-torus and this problem can be easily solved (compare ). The zero mode of $`\mathrm{D}/_{(2)}`$ is given by

$$\varphi _0=\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ \stackrel{~}{\phi }_0(x_1,x_2,L_1,L_2)\end{array}\right),\stackrel{~}{\phi }_0(x_1,x_2,L_1,L_2)=\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\pi x_2^2}{L_1L_2}\right)\overline{\theta (u,iL_2/L_1)}.$$
(B.4)
A short calculation shows that the zero mode in $`D=4`$ dimensions has the form:

$$\psi _0=\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 0\\ 0\\ \stackrel{~}{\phi }_0(x_1,x_2,L_1,L_2)\stackrel{~}{\phi }_0(x_3,x_4,L_3,L_4)\end{array}\right).$$
(B.5)
Obviously, the non-zero spinor component of $`\psi _0`$ is the product of the two zero mode functions $`\stackrel{~}{\phi }_0`$ from $`D=2`$.


text:
# Distances to Nearby Galaxies in Sculptor Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. under NASA contract NAS 5–26555.

## 1 Introduction

The association of five bright spiral galaxies in the Sculptor constellation, NGC 55, NGC 247, NGC 253, NGC 300, and NGC 7793, has been considered by many authors as the galaxy group closest to the Local Group (LG), at a distance of $``$2 Mpc. Over the past decades, a number of dwarf galaxies have been found in this area by van den Bergh (1959: DDO 6, DDO 226), Nilsen (1974: UGCA 438, UGCA 442), and Lauberts (1982: ESO sky survey objects). Special searches for fainter irregular (dIrr) and spheroidal (dSph) dwarf galaxies in the Sculptor group were undertaken by Côté et al. (1997), Karachentseva & Karachentsev (1998, 2000), and Jerjen et al. (1998, 2000). In their paper entitled, “Discovery of numerous dwarf galaxies in the two nearest groups of galaxies”, Côté et al. (1997) reported on the discovery of five new dwarf members of the Sculptor group: Sc 2, Sc 18, Sc 22, Sc 24, and Sc 42. However, based on CCD images of the objects obtained by Whiting et al.(2002) and Tully (2003), we conclude that all of them, except Sc 22, are background galaxies, whose H i velocities were confused with Galactic high velocity clouds in the velocity range from +60 to +160 km s-1. Recent H i surveys of the Sculptor region by Staveley-Smith et al. (1998), Barnes et al. (2001), de Blok et al. (2002) have not yet led to the discovery of new dwarf members of the group. Jerjen et al. (1998) measured distances to five dwarf galaxies in Sculptor from fluctuations of their surface brightness and showed that the so-called “Sculptor group” turns out to be a loose filament of galaxies extended along a line of sight over $``$5 Mpc.

In this paper we present new distance measurements for nine galaxies in the Sculptor region, derived from their tip of the red giant branch (TRGB). Together with earlier published TRGB distances to four other galaxies (Karachentsev et al. 2000, 2002) and the distance to NGC 300 from Cepheids (Freedman et al. 1992), this gives us a basis for a more detailed study of the structure of the Sculptor complex.

## 2  WFPC2 photometry

Images of nine galaxies were obtained with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WFPC2) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) between August 24, 1999 and June 28, 2001 as part of our HST snapshot survey of nearby galaxy candidates (Seitzer et al. 1999; Grebel et al. 2000). The galaxies were observed with 600-second exposures taken in the F606W and F814W filters for each object. Digital Sky Survey (DSS) images of these galaxies are shown in Figure 1 with the HST WFPC2 footprints superimposed. The field size of the red DSS-II images is 8$`\mathrm{}`$. Small galaxies were usually centered on the WF3 chip, but for some bright objects the WFPC2 position was shifted towards the galaxy periphery to decrease stellar crowding. The WFPC2 images of the galaxies are presented in the upper panels of Figure 2, where both filters are combined.

For photometric measurements we used the HSTphot stellar photometry package developed by Dolphin (2000a). The package has been optimized for the undersampled conditions present in the WFPC2 to work in crowded fields. After removing cosmic rays, simultaneous photometry was performed on the F606W and F814W frames using multiphot, with corrections to an aperture with a radius of $`0\stackrel{}{.}5`$. Charge-transfer efficiency (CTE) corrections and calibrations were then applied, which are based on the Dolphin (2000b) formulae, producing $`V,I`$ photometry for all stars detected in both images. Additionally, stars with a signal-to-noise ratio $`S/N<3`$, $`\chi >2.0`$, or $``$ sharpness $`>0.4`$ in each exposure were eliminated from the final photometry list. The uncertainty of the photometric zero point is estimated to be within $`0\stackrel{m}{.}05`$ (Dolphin 2000b).

## 3 TRGB distances to nine galaxies in Sculptor

The tip of red giant branch (TRGB) method provides an efficient tool to measure galaxy distances. The TRGB distances agree with those given by the Cepheid period-luminosity relation to within 5%. As shown by Lee et al. (1993), the TRGB is relatively independent of age and metallicity. In the $`I`$ band the TRGB for low-mass stars is found to be stable within $`0\stackrel{m}{.}1`$ (Salaris & Cassisi 1997; Udalski et al. 2001) for metallicities, \[Fe/H\], encompassing the entire range from $``$2.1 to $``$0.7 dex found in Galactic globular clusters. According to Da Costa & Armandroff (1990), for metal-poor systems the TRGB is located at $`M_I=4\stackrel{m}{.}05`$. Ferrarese et al. (2000) calibrated the zero point of the TRGB from galaxies with Cepheid distances and estimated $`M_I=4\stackrel{m}{.}06\pm 0\stackrel{m}{.}07(random)\pm 0.13(systematic)`$. A new TRGB calibration, $`M_I=4\stackrel{m}{.}04\pm 0\stackrel{m}{.}12`$, was made by Bellazzini et al. (2001) based on photometry and on the distance estimate from a detached eclipsing binary in the Galactic globular cluster $`\omega `$ Centauri. For this paper we use $`M_I=4\stackrel{m}{.}05`$. The lower left panels of Figure 2 show $`I`$, $`(VI)`$ color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) for the nine observed galaxies.

We determined the TRGB using a Gaussian-smoothed $`I`$-band luminosity function (LF) for red stars with colors $`VI`$ within $`\pm 0\stackrel{m}{.}5`$ of the mean $`VI`$ expected for red giant branch stars. Following Sakai et al. (1996), we applied a Sobel edge-detection filter. The position of the TRGB was identified with the peak in the filter response function. The resulting LFs and the Sobel-filtered LFs are shown in the lower right corners of Figure 2. The results are summarized in Table 1. There we list: (1) galaxy name; (2) equatorial coordinates of the galaxy center; (3) galaxy major diameter and axial ratio; (4) apparent integrated blue magnitude from the NASA Extragalactic Database (NED) and Galactic extinction in the $`B`$-band from Schlegel et al. 1998; (5) morphological type in de Vaucouleurs’ notation; (6) heliocentric radial velocity and radial velocity with respect to the LG centroid (Karachentsev & Makarov 1996); (7) position of the TRGB and its uncertainty as derived with the Sobel filter; (9) true distance modulus with its uncertainty, which takes into account the uncertainty in the TRGB, as well as uncertainties of the HST photometry zero point ($`0\stackrel{m}{.}05`$), the aperture corrections ($`0\stackrel{m}{.}05`$), and the crowding effects ($`0\stackrel{m}{.}06`$) added quadratically; the uncertainties in the extinction and reddening are taken to be $`10\%`$ of their values from Schlegel et al. (1998); \[for more details on the total budget of internal and external systematic errors for the TRGB method see Mendez et al. (2002)\]; and (9) linear distance in Mpc and its uncertainty.

Given the distance moduli of the galaxies, we can estimate their mean metallicity from the mean color of the TRGB measured at an absolute magnitude $`M_I=3.5`$, as recommended by Da Costa & Armandroff (1990). Based on a Gaussian fit to the color distribution of the giant stars in a corresponding $`I`$– magnitude interval $`(3.5\pm 0.3)`$, we derived their mean colors, $`(VI)_{3.5}`$, which lie in the range of 1.18 mag to 1.54 mag after correction for Galactic reddening. Following the relation of Lee et al. (1993), this provides us with mean metallicities $``$1.1 dex $`>`$\[Fe/H\]$`>2.4`$ dex, listed in the last column of Table 1. With a typical statistical scatter of the mean color ($`0\stackrel{m}{.}05`$), and uncertainties of the HST photometry zero point we expect the uncertainty in metallicity to be about 0.3 dex. Therefore within the measurement accuracy the metallicity of the galaxies satisfy the required limitation, \[Fe/H\] $`<0.7`$ dex. Below, some individual properties of the galaxies are briefly discussed.

Sc 22. This dwarf spheroidal galaxy of very low surface brightness was discovered by Côté et al. (1997). Surface photometry of Sc 22 was carried out by Jerjen et al. (1998, 2000), who determined its integrated apparent magnitude, $`B_T`$ = 17.73 mag, integrated color, $`(BR)_T`$ = 0.79 mag, and central surface brightness, $`25.8^m/\mathit{}\mathrm{}`$ in the B band. Using the method of surface brightness fluctuations (SBF), they estimated the distance to Sc 22 to be 2.67$`\pm `$0.16 Mpc. The galaxy was not detected in the H i line by Côté et al. (1997), neither was it detected in the “blind” HIPASS survey by Staveley-Smith et al. (1998) and Barnes et al. (2001). The color-magnitude diagram of Sc 22 (see Fig. 2) is populated predominantly by red stars. The application of the Sobel filter yields I(TRGB) = $`24\stackrel{m}{.}10\pm 0\stackrel{m}{.}21`$, which corresponds to a linear distance of 4.21$`\pm `$0.43 Mpc. This is much larger than the SBF distance.

DDO 226 = IC 1574 = UGCA 9. This dIrr galaxy has a relatively high radial velocity, $`V_{LG}`$ = 408 km s-1. The CMD of DDO 226 shows blue and red stellar populations. There is no strong discontinuity in the luminosity function but there is only a slight hint of a red giant branch. Two peaks are seen in the Sobel–filtered luminosity function. The first lower peak at $`I=23.8`$ appears to be caused by AGB stars, and the second one, at $`I=24\stackrel{m}{.}44\pm 0\stackrel{m}{.}24`$, which we interpret as the TRGB, yields a linear distance of 4.92$`\pm `$0.58 Mpc.

NGC 253. NGC 253 is the brightest galaxy in the Sculptor group. With a size of 27$`\mathrm{}\times 6\mathrm{}`$, NGC 253 extends far beyond the WFPC2 field. Surprisingly, this prominent Sc galaxy has so far no reliable distance estimate, apart from a rough estimate of $`D`$ = 2.77 Mpc derived by Puche & Carignan (1988) from the Tully-Fisher relation. In our HST observations the WFPC2 was pointed to the NE quadrant of the galaxy, where the stellar crowding is lower. The HST photometry measured a total of about 27000, mostly red, stars. The TRGB is located at $`I`$ = 23$`\stackrel{m}{.}97\pm 0\stackrel{m}{.}19`$, corresponding to a distance of 3.94$`\pm `$0.37 Mpc. With this distance, the resulting absolute integrated magnitude of NGC 253, $`M_B=20.14`$ mag, turns out to be comparable with the absolute magnitudes of the Milky Way.Like the Milky Way, NGC 253 has a rotation velocity $`V_{max}`$ about 225 km s-1.

KDG 2 = ESO 540–030 = KK 09. This dSph galaxy of low surface brightness was found by Karachentseva (1968) and then selected as the Local Volume member candidate by Karachentseva & Karachentsev (1998). According to the surface photometry carried out by Jerjen et al. (1998, 2000), KDG 2 has an integrated magnitude of $`B_T`$ = 16.37 mag, an integrated color of $`(BR)_T`$ = 0.83 mag, and a central surface brightness of 24.1$`{}_{}{}^{m}/\mathit{}\mathrm{}`$ in the $`B`$-band. Jerjen et al. (1998) determined its distance via SBF to be 3.19$`\pm `$0.13 Mpc. The HST photometry measured about 1900 predominantly red stars. We derived the TRGB to be located at $`23\stackrel{m}{.}65\pm 0\stackrel{m}{.}20`$, which corresponds to $`D`$ = 3.40$`\pm `$0.34 Mpc, in good agreement with the previous estimate. Apart from red stars, we also found a number of blue stars, which occupy the central part of the galaxy. Probably, KDG 2 is not a dSph galaxy, but belongs to a transition dSph/dIrr type, like LGS-3 and Antlia. Huchtmeier et al. (2000) did not detect it in the H i line.

DDO 6 = UGCA 15 = ESO 540–031. This dIrr galaxy of drop-like shape has a radial velocity of $`V_{LG}`$ = 348 km s-1. In Fig.2 the CMD shows the presence of mixed blue and red populations, in particular, a prominent population of RGB stars. We determined I(TRGB) to be $`23\stackrel{m}{.}62\pm 0\stackrel{m}{.}16`$, yielding $`D`$ = 3.34$`\pm `$0.24 Mpc.

ESO 540-032 = FG 24 = KK 10. Like KDG 2, FG 24 (Feitzinger & Galinski 1985) has a reddish color and a low surface brightness, typical of dSph or dSph/dIrr galaxies. The galaxy was not detected in H i by Huchtmeier et al. (2000). Surface photometry of FG 24, performed by Jerjen et al. (1998, 2000), yields an integrated magnitude of $`B_T`$ = 16.44 mag, an integrated color $`(BR)_T`$ = 1.08 mag, and a central surface brightness 24.5$`{}_{}{}^{m}/\mathit{}\mathrm{}`$ in the $`B`$-band. Most of the stars detected by us in FG 24 (see Fig. 2) are likely RGB stars, although some faint blue stars are present in the galaxy’s central part. The TRGB $`I`$-band magnitude derived by us, $`23\stackrel{m}{.}67\pm 0\stackrel{m}{.}17`$, corresponds to a distance of 3.42$`\pm `$0.27 Mpc, which exceeds the distance 2.21$`\pm `$0.14 Mpc estimated by Jerjen et al. (1998) from SBF, but agrees excellently with the new distance estimate, 3.4$`\pm `$0.2 Mpc, obtained by Jerjen & Rejkuba (2001) from the TRGB.

ESO 245–005. This irregular galaxy of Magellanic type has an angular dimension of $`3\stackrel{}{.}8\times 3\stackrel{}{.}4`$ and a radial velocity of $`V_{LG}`$ = 308 km s-1. In the WFPC2 image of its central bar-like part we detected about 11000 blue and red stars. We determined the $`I`$-band TRGB to be at 24$`\stackrel{m}{.}22\pm 0\stackrel{m}{.}21`$, yielding a distance of 4.43$`\pm `$0.45 Mpc.

UGCA 442 = ESO 471–06. This is an edge-on galaxy of Im type with a radial velocity $`V_{LG}`$ = 299 km s-1 and angular dimension 6$`\stackrel{}{.}4\times 0\stackrel{}{.}9`$, much larger than the WFPC2 field. The galaxy seems to be well resolved into stars. Our HST photometry reveals about 5600 stars, both blue and red ones. The derived TRGB, $`I=24\stackrel{m}{.}13\pm 0\stackrel{m}{.}26`$, corresponds to a distance of 4.27$`\pm `$0.52 Mpc.

NGC 7793. This is a bright spiral galaxy with a dimension of 9$`\stackrel{}{.}3\times 6\stackrel{}{.}3`$ and with a radial velocity $`V_{LG}`$ = 252 km s-1. The WFPC2 was pointed at its eastern side. We obtained photometry for about 22000 stars. The CMD shows a mixture of young and old stellar populations. The TRGB magnitude, 23$`\stackrel{m}{.}95\pm 0\stackrel{m}{.}22`$, yields a galaxy distance of 3.91$`\pm `$0.41 Mpc, in reasonable agreement with the distance 3.27$`\pm `$0.08 Mpc derived by Puche & Carignan (1988) from the Tully-Fisher relation.

## 4 Structure and kinematics of the Sculptor group

To study the 3-D structure of the Sculptor complex, we collected the most complete sample of data on all known nearby galaxies situated in this region of the sky. Table 2 presents the following characteristics of the 21 galaxies in our sample: (1) galaxy name; (2) equatorial (upper line), and Supergalactic (lower line) coordinates; (3) major angular diameter in arcmin and apparent axial ratio; (4) apparent integrated magnitude from NED and Galactic extinction from Schlegel et al. (1998) in the B-band; (5) morphological type; (6) heliocentric radial velocity in km s-1 and velocity in the Local Group rest frame (Karachentsev & Makarov 1996); (7) the H i line width (in km s-1) at the 50% level of the maximum from LEDA (Paturel et al. 1996) or HIPASS, corrected for galaxy inclination (upper line), and absolute magnitude of the galaxy, corrected for Galactic extinction (lower line); (8) distance to the galaxy in Mpc from the Milky Way (upper line), and from the Local Group centroid (lower line), respectively. The last column gives the method used for distance measurement (“Cep” — from Cepheids, “RGB” — from TRGB, “SBF” — from surface brightness fluctuations, and “TF” — from the Tully-Fisher relation), and the distance data reference.

Apart from four dSph galaxies with known distances but unknown radial velocities (KK 3, Sc 22, KDG 2, and FG 24), we also included in Table 2 the low surface brightness galaxy KK 258, which looks like a nearby semi-resolved system in a CCD image obtained by Whiting et al. (2002). Its distance and velocity are both unknown. In comparison with the TRGB distances, the distance estimates of Sc 22, KDG 2 and FG 24 from SBF (Jerjen et al. 1998) are systematically lower on 0.9 Mpc, which is why we increased their original SBF distance estimate for NGC 59 from 4.4 Mpc to 5.3 Mpc.

The distribution of the 21 galaxies from Table 2 is presented in Fig. 3 in equatorial coordinates. Three of the brightest spiral galaxies are shown as filled squares, and dIrr and dSph galaxies are shown as filled and open circles, respectively. Radial velocities of the galaxies with respect to the LG centroid are indicated by numbers. As can be seen, the distribution of galaxies in Sculptor does not exhibit any distinct center, and it does not show a sharp boundary either. Most of the galaxies are situated at low supergalactic latitudes, $``$SGB$``$ $`<10\mathrm{°}`$, where projection effects makes it difficult to restore the 3-D structure of the group. Referring to Table 3, we recognize that the spiral galaxy NGC 253 surpasses all other galaxies in this group by more than a factor of five in luminosity. Therefore, we consider NGC 253 as the dynamical center of the Sculptor group.

Puche & Carignan (1988) estimated the distance to NGC 253 and some other galaxies in Sculptor, based on the Tully-Fisher relation. However, for their calibration, they used old data on galaxy distances. A revised relation “absolute magnitude — H i line width” for 6 galaxies in Sculptor with new distance estimates is presented in Fig. 4. Here, the line width is corrected for galaxy inclination to the line of sight. Using the regression line, $`M_B=7.0`$ log$`(W_c)1.8`$, we estimated the distances to five galaxies: NGC 55, NGC 247, NGC 625, ESO 349–031, and ESO 149–03, presented in column (8) of Table 2.

The Hubble diagram showing velocity versus distance for 20 galaxies in Sculptor is given in Fig. 5. Galaxies with accurate distance estimates (“Cep”, “RGB””, “SBF”) are shown as filled circles, while galaxies with distances from the T-F relation are indicated by crosses, and the brightest spiral galaxy NGC 253 is shown as a square. Four dSph galaxies without velocities are shown conditionally by vertical bars. The solid curve corresponds to the Hubble parameter H = 75 km s-1 Mpc-1. At small distances this curve deviates from a straight line due to a decelerating gravitational action of the Local Group, the total mass of which is adopted to be $`M_{LG}=1.310^{12}M_{\mathrm{}}`$ (Karachentsev et al. 2002).

Based on the data in Fig. 3 and Fig. 5, we can describe the structure of the galaxy complex in Sculptor in the following way.

a) Three galaxies with $`V_{LG}>`$ 400 km s-1 (ESO 149–03, NGC 59, and DDO 226) apparently are background objects. NGC 59 and DDO 226 probably form a wide pair with a linear projected distance of 580 kpc and a radial velocity difference of 13 km s-1.

b) In front of the complex there is a pair of bright galaxies, NGC 300 and NGC 55, with two dSph companions, ESO 410–05 and ESO 294–10. The mean distance to this loose quartet is 1.95 Mpc. This is only 0.6 Mpc more distant than to another known loose quartet: NGC 3109, Sex A, Sex B, and Antlia, located at the LG edge. Possibly, two other dIrr galaxies, UGCA 438 and IC 5152, are associated with the NGC 300 group, too.

c) The brightest spiral galaxy NGC 253 together with its companions, NGC 247, DDO 6, Sc 22, KDG 2 and FG 24, can be considered as the Sculptor complex’ core. The last three dSph galaxies do not have radial velocities so far. Apart from the NGC 253 group, there is a galaxy triplet, NGC 7793, UGCA 442, and ESO 349–031. The line of sight distances to NGC 253 and NGC 7793 are almost the same within the measurement errors.

d) Among the remaining galaxies, NGC 625 and ESO 245–05 have an angular separation of 2$`\stackrel{}{.}9`$ and a radial velocity difference of only 27 km s-1. However, their distance estimates differ significantly. Because NGC 625 deviates essentially from the Hubble regression line in Fig. 5, we assume its T-F distance to be underestimated by approximately 2 Mpc. This assumption can be easily proven by measuring the TRGB distance to this poorly studied galaxy.

The total mass of each group can be estimated from the virial balance of kinetic and potential energies (Limber & Mathews 1960),

$$M_{vir}=3\pi N(N1)^1G^1\sigma _v^2R_H,$$
$`(1)`$
where $`N`$ is the number of galaxies in the group, $`\sigma _v^2`$ is the radial velocity dispersion, $`R_H`$ is the mean projected harmonic radius, and $`G`$ is the gravitational constant. Such an approach assumes that the characteristic crossing time of the group, $`T_{cross}=R_p/\sigma _v`$, is low in comparison with the age of the Universe (here $`R_p`$ means the average projected radius of the group).

Another way to estimate the total mass of a group was proposed by Bahcall & Tremaine (1981). Assuming the motions of dwarf galaxies around the main group member to be closed Keplerian motions with orbit eccentricity $`e`$, in the case of random orientation of galaxy orbits we obtain

$$M_{orb}=(32/3\pi )G^1(12e^2/3)^1R_p\mathrm{\Delta }V_r^2,$$
$`(2)`$
where $`R_p`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ are projected distance and radial velocity of a companion with respect to the main group member.

The basic dynamical parameters of the three mentioned groups in Sculptor are presented in Table 3. In the case of orbital mass estimates the mean eccentricity $`e`$= 0.7 is adopted. As seen from these data, the virial/orbital mass-to-luminosity ratios of the groups lie in the range of 45 to 260 $`M_{\mathrm{}}/L_{\mathrm{}}`$. However, for all the groups their crossing time, 6 – 18 Gyr, is comparable to the time of cosmic expansion, $`1/H_0`$, which makes the derived mass estimates very unreliable.

According to Lynden-Bell (1981) and Sandage (1986), in the expanding universe any dense enough group with a total mass $`M_0`$ may be characterized by a “zero-velocity surface”, which separates the group from the Hubble flow. In the case of spherical symmetry, the radius of this surface, $`R_0`$, is expressed via the total mass of the group and the Hubble constant, $`H_0`$, by a simple relation

$$M_0=(\pi ^2/8G)H_0^2R_0^3.$$
$`(3)`$
For estimating $`R_0`$, we calculated for any galaxy with the distance $`D`$ and radial velocity $`V`$ its spatial separation from NGC 253

$$R^2=D^2+D_{N253}^22DD_{N253}\mathrm{cos}\theta $$

and its projected radial velocity with respect to NGC 253

$$(VV_{N253})_p=V\mathrm{cos}\lambda V_{N253}\mathrm{cos}(\theta +\lambda ),$$

where $`\theta `$ is an angular distance of the galaxy from NGC 253, and tan $`\lambda =D_{N253}\mathrm{sin}\theta /(DD_{N253}\mathrm{cos}\theta ).`$ Here we assumed that the peculiar velocities of the galaxies are small in comparison with velocities of the regular Hubble flow. The estimated values $`(VV_{N253})_p`$ and $`R`$ for 15 galaxies around NGC 253 are presented in column (9) of Table 2. The distribution of relative radial velocities and spatial separations is shown in Fig. 6. Here galaxies with accurate (“Cep”, “RGB”, “SBF”) and with rough (“TF”) distance estimates are indicated by filled circles and crosses, respectively. As seen from Fig. 6, among sufficiently distant galaxies with $`R>0.7Mpc`$ there are no galaxies approaching NGC 253 ( the region of cosmological expansion). In particular, NGC 7793 together with its companions move away from NGC 253 too. But within $`R<0.7Mpc`$ there are galaxies both with negative (DDO 6) as well as positive (NGC 247) velocities with respect to NGC 253 (”virialized” zone). Based on these (still incomplete) data we can conclude that the radius of the zero-velocity surface for the NGC 253 group is $`R_0`$= 0.7$`\pm `$0.1 Mpc. According to equation (3) this corresponds to a total mass of $`M_0`$= (0.55$`\pm `$0.22) $`10^{12}M_{\mathrm{}}`$ or $`M_0/L_B=(29\pm 11)M_{\mathrm{}}/L_{\mathrm{}}`$, which is 3–5 times lower than the virial/orbital mass estimates derived above. Measurements of radial velocities for the remaining four dSph galaxies, situated in the range $`R`$= 0.47 – 2.07 Mpc, will allow one to derive the radius $`R_0`$ and the total mass of the NGC 253 group with higher accuracy.

## 5 Concluding remarks

Our measurements of accurate distances to 9 galaxies in Sculptor clarified the structure and kinematics of this nearby complex of galaxies. However, nine other presumably nearby galaxies in the same area (with $`V_{LG}<`$ 500 km s-1 or $`D<`$5 Mpc) still remain without reliable distance estimates ( NGC 55, NGC 625, NGC 247, SDIG, and ESO 149-03) or radial velocity estimates (ESO 410–05, KDG 2, FG 24, and Sc 22). Our new data on galaxy distances confirm the conclusion drawn by Jerjen et al. (1998) that the so-called group in Sculptor is a loose “cloud” of galaxies of 1$`\times `$6 Mpc in size, extended along the line of sight. Apparently, the near and the far parts of this “cigar” are not gravitationally bound to each other, but take part in the general Hubble flow. In this sense, the Sculptor cloud looks like another nearby cloud, Canes Venatici I (Karachentsev et al. 2003). Both these loose clouds are populated mostly by dwarf galaxies, and their luminosity function has a flat “primordial” shape. As was noted by Jerjen et al.(1998) and Karachentsev et al.(2003), the galaxy complexes in Sculptor and Canes Venatici together with the Local Group form an amorphous filament extending over $``$10 Mpc.

The nearby galaxy complex in Sculptor is a suitable case to study the “anatomy” of virial mass excess. In projection onto the sky, the Sculptor filament has a rather high overdensity, and can be easely identified as a usual group by the “friend of friends” algorithm (Huchra & Geller 1982) or by the method of hierarchical trees (Materne 1978). In his Nearby Galaxy Catalog, Tully (1988) denotes the Sculptor group by the number “14–13”. Based on radial velocities and projected separations of 11 members of the group, Tully (1987) estimated its virial mass-to-luminosity ratio to be $`M_{vir}/L_B=328M_{\mathrm{}}/L_{\mathrm{}}`$. There the galaxies NGC 55, NGC 253, NGC 7793, and DDO 226 were considered as members of a single group. Apart from real and probable members of the Sculptor complex, Tully included in the group also the galaxy PGC 71145, whose radial velocity is +16 km s-1 (instead of +1600 km s-1 as a result of a misprint in Longmore et al. 1982). Comparing the ratio $`M_{vir}/L_B`$ from Tully (1987) with our estimate of the total mass-to-luminosity ratio, 29$`\pm `$11 $`M_{\mathrm{}}/L_{\mathrm{}}`$, we conclude that by using the more reliable and precise observational data that are now available, as well as our new approach to the determination of mass, can decrease the total mass estimate of the group by one order of magnitude.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors wish to thank C.Carignan, the referee, for his useful comments. Support for this work was provided by NASA through grant GO–08601.01– A from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5–26555. This work was partially supported by RFBR grant 01–02–16001 and DFG-RFBR grant 02–02–04012. D.G. gratefully acknowledges support from the Chile Centro de Astrofísica FONDAP No. 15010003. The Digitized Sky Surveys were produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute under U.S. Government grant NAG W–2166. The images of these surveys are based on photographic data obtained using the Oschin Schmidt Telescope on the Palomar Mountain and the UK Schmidt Telescope. The plates were processed into the present compressed digital form with permission of these institutions. This project made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.