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# Trace anomaly and black holes evaporation

## Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank D.Grumiller, G.Esposito and S.Sonego for remarks and bibliographic suggestions.


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# Detection of strongly processed ice in the central starburst of NGC 4945 Based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory, Chile in programs 63.N–0387, 65.N–0535 & 67.B–0096

## 1 Introduction

It has long been recognized that dust is an important component of the ISM in star forming regions in our galaxy and nearby galaxies. Optical studies of high redshift galaxies as well as deep mid-infrared and submm surveys have recently stressed the importance of dust in galaxies up to high redshifts. Understanding the composition, origin and evolution of dust – particularly in star forming regions – is therefore a key question of astrophysics. Of special importance are interstellar ices, which are only present in molecular cloud environments. Mid-infrared spectra taken with the spectrometers aboard the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) have shown ices to exist in a variety of extragalactic sources, from nearby starburst nuclei up to distant dust-enshrouded ultra-luminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs). Weak H2O ice absorptions were first detected in the nuclear spectra of the nearby galaxies M 82 and NGC 253 (Sturm et al. Sturm00 (2000)). Strong ice absorptions of H2O, CO2 and the XCN/CO blend were first seen in the nucleus of NGC 4945 (Spoon et al. Spoon00 (2000)). This was followed by the discovery of H2O, ‘HAC’ and CH4 ice in the nuclear spectrum of NGC 4418 (Spoon et al. Spoon01 (2001)). So far ices have been found in some twenty galaxies (Spoon et al. Spoon02 (2002)), the most distant of which is IRAS 00183–7111, a ULIRG at z=0.33 (Tran et al. Tran00 (2001)).

Interstellar ices are ideal probes for the conditions in the coldest and best shielded galaxy components – their molecular clouds. Embedded protostars can process interstellar ice in their environment thermally as well as through FUV photolysis. Solid CO and ‘XCN’ provide prime probes for this processing. The fundamental vibrational modes of these species correspond to wavelengths around 4.65 $`\mu `$m in the M-band atmospheric window. CO ice is highly sensitive to thermal processing of its environment. In quiescent molecular clouds, as probed by e.g. the field star Elias 16, the CO ice feature is dominated by the feature characteristic for an apolar ice mixture. When heated to temperatures above 20 K, this ice mixture sublimates and the only CO ice mixture surviving is a mixture dominated by H2O ice. This mixture has a distinctly different profile and sublimates at temperatures of $``$90 K. The spectrum of the deeply embedded massive protostar W 33A is dominated by this type of CO profile (Chiar et al. Chiar98 (1998)). The presence of ‘XCN’, or OCN- ice, after its most popular identification (Demyk et al. Demyk98 (1998)), is indicative of strong processing of icy grains by UV light, energetic particles or heating (Lacy et al. Lacy84 (1984); Grim et al. Grim89 (1989); Palumbo et al. Palumbo00 (2000); F. van Broekhuizen, priv. comm.). In our Galaxy, OCN- ice is strongest in the embedded massive protostar W 33A (e.g. Pendleton et al. Pendleton99 (1999)). The feature is generally weak (compared to CO ice) in other protostars (e.g. Pendleton et al. Pendleton99 (1999)) and absent in quiescent molecular clouds, such as probed by the line of sight towards the field star Elias 16 (Chiar et al. Chiar95 (1995)).

Here we report on our VLT/ISAAC L and M-band follow-up spectroscopy of the rich ice absorption spectrum of the nucleus of NGC 4945 (Spoon et al. Spoon00 (2000)), a nearby (3.9 Mpc; 1$`\mathrm{}`$=18 pc; Bergman et al. Bergman92 (1992)) luminous (LIR=3$`\times `$1010 L) infrared galaxy, seen nearly edge-on (i$``$78$`\mathrm{°}`$; Ables et al. Ables87 (1987)). The central region of this galaxy is dominated by a visually obscured starburst (Moorwood et al. Moorwood96 (1996); Marconi et al. Marconi00 (2000)) and a heavily enshrouded AGN, only seen in hard X-rays (Iwasawa et al. Iwasawa93 (1993); Guainazzi et al. Guainazzi00 (2000)). Pa$`\alpha `$ (1.88 $`\mu `$m) and K-band (2.2 $`\mu `$m) images obtained with HST/NICMOS (Marconi et al. Marconi00 (2000)) reveal a complicated nuclear morphology, resulting from a nuclear starburst partially obscured by a strongly absorbing circumnuclear star forming ring, seen nearly edge-on. Fig. 1 shows the HST/NICMOS K-band image (Marconi et al. Marconi00 (2000)), rotated such that the galaxy major axis lies horizontally. A possible geometry for the circumnuclear starburst ring, seen under an inclination of $``$78$`\mathrm{°}`$, is indicated by a dotted circle with radius 5.5$`\mathrm{}`$ (100 pc). The apparent asymmetric distribution of the nuclear emission interior to this ring (strong emission at position E, no emission at position B) has been attributed to patchy absorption within the ring (Marconi et al. Marconi00 (2000)). Note that the emission at position A on the galaxy major axis appears to arise in the circumnuclear ring, not in the nuclear starburst. The dark structures seen at position D in Fig. 1 are likely gas filaments rising above the star forming ring and appearing in absorption against the bright nuclear continuum. The Pa$`\alpha `$ image (Marconi et al. Marconi00 (2000)) shows more of these dark filamentary structures, one of which passes in front of the K-band nucleus. The AGN, the second brightest Seyfert 2 nucleus in the sky at hard X-rays (Done et al. Done96 (1996)), does not appear in any of the HST/NICMOS images. Groundbased 10 $`\mu `$m ESO/TIMMI images (1$`\mathrm{}`$ seeing) reveal no sign of the central monster either (Marconi et al. Marconi00 (2000)). Also mid-infrared spectroscopic AGN tracers, like 7.65 $`\mu `$m $`[Ne\text{vi}]`$ and 14.3 & 24.3 $`\mu `$m $`[Ne\text{v}]`$, resulted in strong upper limits (Spoon et al. Spoon00 (2000)). It is hence likely that the AGN is strongly obscured in all directions by material which is most probably close to the black hole for the obscuration to be effective. The conical cavity, protruding from the nucleus along the minor axis and seen in the near-infrared (Moorwood et al. Moorwood96 (1996)) and in soft X-rays (Schurch et al. Schurch02 (2002)), is therefore not a Seyfert ionization cone, but a cavity cleared by a supernova-driven starburst ’superwind’ (Moorwood et al. Moorwood96 (1996)).

Here we present infrared L and M-band spectra of all nuclear components discussed above obtained using VLT/ISAAC with its slit aligned with the galaxy major axis (Fig. 1).

## 2 Observations

The 3–5 $`\mu `$m spectra of the NGC 4945 nucleus were obtained using the Infrared Spectrometer And Array Camera (ISAAC) mounted on the VLT (UT1-Antu) at the ESO Paranal Observatory. The observations were performed on the night of June 15, 2000 for the L-band spectrum and on the nights of June 15–16, 2000 and July 1–3, 2001 for the M-band spectrum. The low resolution grating and the 1$`\mathrm{}`$ slit were used for the L-band spectrum with a corresponding resolving power of R=360. The M-band spectrum was obtained using the medium resolution grating and the 1$`\mathrm{}`$ slit, resulting in a spectral resolving power of R=3000 ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$v=100 km/s FWHM). In both cases, a single setting was done covering the entire L-band and the region from 4.56 to 4.80 $`\mu `$m in the M-band. The spectra have a total integration time of 240 s and 5123 s for the L and the M-band, respectively. The telescope was operated in the standard chop-nod mode with a chop throw of 20$`\mathrm{}`$. The telluric standard BS 5571 (B2III) was observed just before or after each observation of NGC 4945 with a maximal airmass difference of 0.15.

The data were reduced using our own IDL routines. The individual frames were corrected for the non-linearity of the Aladdin detector, distortion corrected using a star trace map and bad pixels and cosmic ray hits were removed before co-adding. For the M-band this procedure resulted in six co-added source frames and six co-added standard star frames. Standard star spectra were obtained by extracting the positive spectral trace from each of the six standard star frames. The six source frames were then divided by their associated standard star spectra, taking into account an optimal small shift between the source frame and standard spectrum by requiring that the pixel-to-pixel noise on the continuum of the final source frame be minimized. No correction for airmass differences was attempted due to insufficient signal-to-noise ratio of the source frames. No hydrogen recombination lines were detected in the standard spectrum and thus no attempts were made to correct the standard for photospheric lines. Next, each source frame was flux calibrated relative to the standard and wavelength calibrated using the telluric absorption lines in the standard star spectrum. The final source frame was then produced by stacking the six source frames, taking into account small dispersion shifts among the frames.

The flux calibration is estimated to be better than 15% and the wavelength calibration is accurate to 150 km/s and 15 km/s for the L and M-band spectra, respectively.

## 3 Results

### 3.1 The 3 $`\mu `$m water ice band

The ISAAC L-band spectrum of the central region of NGC 4945 (Fig. 2) is dominated by a broad (2.7–4.0 $`\mu `$m) absorption band attributed mainly to water ice (e.g. Smith et al. Smith89 (1989); Chiar et al. Chiar00 (2000)). The width of the feature is best appreciated in the low resolution 24$`\mathrm{}\times `$24$`\mathrm{}`$ ISO-PHT-S spectrum, which is shown for comparison. Superimposed on the absorbed L-band continuum are the PAH emission bands at 3.3 & 3.4 $`\mu `$m as well as the H Br$`\alpha `$ line at 4.05 $`\mu `$m. The ISAAC spectra of the central 2$`\mathrm{}\times `$1$`\mathrm{}`$ and 11.5$`\mathrm{}\times `$1$`\mathrm{}`$ agree well with the larger beam ISO-PHT-S spectrum, assuming the water ice feature in the latter spectrum to be diluted by a non-absorbed stellar and dust continuum. Adopting a flat continuum (fixed at 4.0–4.1 $`\mu `$m) and depending on whether we fit the bottom or the blue wing of the feature, we find a water ice column of 41–47 $`\times `$ 1017 cm-2 (assuming a band strength of 2.0 $`\times `$1016 cm/molecule; Gerakines et al. Gerakines95 (1995)). Note the absence of 3.94 $`\mu `$m $`[Si\text{ix}]`$ line emission from the ISAAC L-band spectrum. This line arises in soft X-ray photoionized gas and is comparable to or brighter than the H Br$`\alpha `$ line in many Seyfert galaxies (Oliva et al. Oliva94 (1994); Lutz et al. Lutz02 (2002)). The absence ($`[Si\text{ix}]`$/H Br$`\alpha <`$0.10) may be taken as evidence for the extremely high obscuration of the AGN in NGC 4945 in the L-band.

### 3.2 Processed CO and OCN- ice

The M-band spectrum of the central 2$`\mathrm{}\times `$1$`\mathrm{}`$ of the nuclear region of NGC 4945 (Fig. 3) contains strong and relatively broad absorption features at 4.62 and 4.67 $`\mu `$m as well as gas lines due to H, H2 and CO. The line centers of the gas phase lines shift as a function of position along the slit.

In order to investigate the various M-band absorption features, we fitted a linear continuum to the two pivot ranges 4.54–4.55 $`\mu `$m and 4.78–4.79 $`\mu `$m. The resulting optical depth spectrum is shown in Fig. 4a. In Fig. 4b, 4c and 4d we show spectra of three comparison objects: the embedded massive protostar W 33A with the strongest known XCN feature; the Galactic Center (Moneti et al. Moneti01 (2001)) showing XCN absorption towards its massive star forming region which is obscured in what is effectively an ‘edge-on’ view towards the center of our own galaxy; and, finally, the unprocessed line of sight to the field star Elias 16 located behind the Taurus molecular cloud (Chiar et al. Chiar95 (1995)). The similarity of NGC 4945 to W 33A is particularly striking and will be discussed later.

Following Galactic ice studies (Tielens et al. Tielens91 (1991); Schutte & Greenberg Schutte97 (1997); Chiar et al. Chiar98 (1998); Demyk et al. Demyk98 (1998); Pendleton et al. Pendleton99 (1999)) we identify the prominent absorption feature centered at 2168.0 cm-1 (FWHM=24.0 cm-1) with solid state ‘XCN’, or OCN- after its most likely identification (Demyk et al. Demyk98 (1998)). In order to measure the shape and depth of the feature, we adopt the ice feature shown in Fig. 3. This continuum has been corrected for the presence of gas phase 12CO and 13CO absorption lines, discussed later in this Section. The OCN- feature appears slightly blueshifted and narrower than in W 33A ($`\nu _0`$=2165.5 cm-1; FWHM=26.7 cm-1). The differences are similar to those found between the embedded protostars AFGL 961 and W 33A (Pendleton et al. Pendleton99 (1999)) and may be attributed to differences in ice composition (Grim & Greenberg Grim87 (1987)). The column density of OCN- is listed in Table 1 and were computed assuming an OCN- bandstrength of 1.3$`\times `$10-16 (F. van Broekhuizen, priv. comm.).

Detailed studies of the observed profiles of the solid CO ice band in Galactic sources have shown that they can all be fitted by varying contributions of the same three components (Boogert et al. 2002a , 2002b ; Pontoppidan et al. Pontoppidan03 (2003)). These three components are thought to represent “pure” solid CO (Gaussian centered at $`\nu _0`$=2139.9 cm-1 with FWHM=3.5 cm-1), traces of CO trapped in H2O ice (“polar CO”; Lorentzian centered at $`\nu _0`$=2136.5 cm-1 with FWHM=10.6 cm-1) and CO in solid CO2 ice (“apolar CO”; Gaussian centered at $`\nu _0`$=2143.7 cm-1 with FWHM=3.0 cm-1) (Boogert et al. 2002a ; Pontoppidan et al. Pontoppidan03 (2003)). Here we note that the spectrum of NGC 4945 is dominated by traces of CO trapped in H2O ice with little or no evidence for the other two components (Fig. 4a). In contrast, the spectrum of W 33A (Fig. 4b) has a noticable contribution of the “pure” solid CO component (Tielens et al. Tielens91 (1991)). Table 1 lists the column densities of the various CO ice components, which were computed assuming a CO bandstrength of 1.1 $`\times `$1017 cm/molecule (Gerakines et al. Gerakines95 (1995)).

The nuclear spectrum of NGC 4945 also reveals CO in the gas phase. In Fig. 3 we identify a total of 13 fundamental ro-vibrational absorption lines of 12CO and several of 13CO. This is a sufficient number of lines to attempt a single component model fit to determine the temperature, intrinsic line width and 12CO and 13CO gas column densities. For this purpose we use the isothermal plane-parallel LTE CO gas models of Cami et al. (Cami02 (2002)), folded with the appropriate VLT/ISAAC spectral resolution (R=3000; $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$v=100 km/s FWHM). In the fitting procedure both the observed spectrum and the model spectra are normalized, through division by a strongly smoothed version of the respective spectra. A four-parameter least-squares minimalization procedure then picks the best fitting model. Fig. 5 shows the result for the nuclear spectrum of NGC 4945. The CO gas appears moderately warm at 35$`{}_{2.5}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+7.5}`$ K, with an intrinsic line width (FWHM) of 50$`\pm `$5 km/s and column densities log N(12CO)=18.3$`\pm `$0.1 cm-2 and log N(13CO)=17.2$`{}_{0.05}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.15}`$ cm-2, assuming a covering factor 1 for the absorber. The uncertainties listed above do not take into account the systematic errors resulting from the data reduction, which may be appreciable. The very low 12CO/13CO ratio of $``$13 indicates that some 12CO lines are likely to be optically thick. In addition, the absorbing material may not be in a uniform screen ’covering factor 1’ configuration (Fig. 1). This will particularly affect the derived column for 12CO. A more realistic, yet more uncertain, value for the 12CO gas column may be derived from the 13CO column. Assuming a 12CO/13CO ratio of 80, we find log N(12CO)=19.1$`{}_{0.05}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.15}`$ cm-2. Note that the (high resolution) spectrum of the physically closest resembling object, the protostar W 33A, also contains CO gas phase lines (Mitchell et al. Mitchell88 (1988)). At the resolution of the ISO–SWS spectrum (R$``$750; Gibb et al. Gibb00 (2000)) these are however not detectable.

### 3.3 The spatial distribution of the ice

The analysis presented above focusses on the nuclear spectrum of NGC 4945, which comprises the central 2$`\mathrm{}\times `$1$`\mathrm{}`$. The nuclear continuum emission extends however from $``$4.5$`\mathrm{}`$ SW to $``$2$`\mathrm{}`$ NE of the nucleus, measured in a 1$`\mathrm{}`$ wide slit along the SW-NE oriented (PA=43$`\mathrm{°}`$) galaxy major axis (see Fig. 1). Line emission (Fig. 7) can be traced as far out as $``$4.5$`\mathrm{}`$ SW (position E) and $``$5.5$`\mathrm{}`$ NE (position A) of the nucleus. Both the continuum and line emission appear clearly weakened in a $``$1$`\mathrm{}`$ long strip located 1.7$`\mathrm{}`$ SW (position D) of the nucleus. This strip coincides with a dark filamentary structure in the HST/NICMOS K-band image (Fig. 1) of Marconi et al. (Marconi00 (2000)). The same image further shows strong extinction from what might be a circumnuclear ring to be responsible for limiting the observable part of the major axis continuum to the range found (see Sect. 1). Our analysis further shows that the ice and gas absorption features are detected wherever there is background continuum to absorb. The depth of the ice features appears to be quite constant (Fig. 6), except for position D, where the solid state absorptions may be significantly stronger. Again interestingly, this position coincides with the dark filamentary structure seen in the HST/NICMOS K-band image (Fig. 1).

The lower panels of Fig. 7 show position-velocity diagrams for the HI Pf$`\beta `$ and H2 0–0 S(9) emission lines. The distributions are remarkably similar over the central $`\pm `$2$`\mathrm{}`$, both indicating rotation about the nucleus. The only significant deviation occurs at a position 0.7 $`\mathrm{}`$ NE of the nucleus (position C), where the H2 0–0 S(9) emission extends $``$40 km/s beyond the highest velocity traced by HI Pf$`\beta `$. We speculate that this position may coincide with the start of the N–S oriented molecular ridge, traced in H2 1–0 S(1) by Moorwood et al. (Moorwood96 (1996)) and Marconi et al. (Marconi00 (2000)), bordering the conical cavity cleared by a starburst superwind (Moorwood et al. Moorwood96 (1996)). Another deviation occurs 3$`\mathrm{}`$– 4$`\mathrm{}`$ NE of the nucleus (position B), where a dark cloud in the circumnuclear ring weakens the line emission from the nuclear starburst it eclipses. Given the high inclination of the circumnuclear ring, the dark cloud may actually be in an orbit in the outer part of the circumnuclear ring, with an appreciable tangential orbital velocity component. This would explain why the HI Pf$`\beta `$ emission from that cloud is $``$50 km/s lower than that of the bright patch 1$`\mathrm{}`$ NE of it (position A). The top panel of Fig. 7 shows the velocity curves derived from fitting single Gaussians to the line emission in each of the observed HI Pf$`\beta `$ and H2 0–0 S(9) position-velocity distributions. The velocity curves obtained for both emission lines are consistent and yield the same velocity gradient of $``$60 km/s/arcsec across the nuclear region. The heliocentric systemic velocity of 561$`\pm `$4 km/s (Dahlem et al. Dahlem93 (1993)) occurs at the brightest M-band cross dispersion pixel. Away from the nucleus the velocity curves flatten off to rotational velocities 120$`\pm `$10 km/s above and below systemic. This value agrees well with the results for H Br$`\gamma `$ and H2 1–0 S(1) obtained by Moorwood & Oliva (Moorwood94 (1994)). Note that Ott et al. (Ott01 (2001)) find rotational velocities up to 160 km/s for HI (21cm). Assuming that the measured velocities trace the potential, the mass within the nuclear region amounts to 1 $`\times `$108 M at 50 pc and 3 $`\times `$108 M at 100 pc. Also shown in the upper panel of Fig. 7 is the velocity curve for gas phase CO. The CO absorption line velocities were derived by cross-correlating the CO absorption line spectra with the best fitting CO gas model. In order to acquire sufficient signal-to-noise in the lines, the spatial information has been combined into 5 bins of 1.0$`\mathrm{}`$–1.5$`\mathrm{}`$ along the major axis. The resulting velocity curve for the CO absorption lines (excluding the point at 1.7$`\mathrm{}`$ SW; position D; see below) clearly samples a different velocity field than the emission lines do. Based on the four CO points, we measure a velocity gradient for the CO gas of 17 km/s/arcsec across the nucleus. The velocity measured for the 1.7$`\mathrm{}`$ SW point (position D) clearly does not fit in with the velocity gradient seen for the other four CO points. Interestingly, the HST/NICMOS K-band image (Fig. 1) shows at this position a dark filamentary structure against the bright K-band continuum. Possibly, the CO gas radial velocity measured at 1.7$`\mathrm{}`$ SW is related to this foreground (circumnuclear ring?) structure instead of to the rotating inner ring/disk.

## 4 Discussion

The wealth of ISM features detected in the VLT/ISAAC L & M-band spectra of NGC 4945 allows us for the first time to study simultaneously the conditions of ionized hydrogen gas, molecular hydrogen, PAHs, icy grains and cold CO gas in the central region of another galaxy. Combined with the spatial information obtained in a 1$`\mathrm{}`$ wide slit oriented along the galaxy major axis, our observations give insight in the kinematics and spatial location of the different ISM components probed.

The picture that emerges is of an extended, fragmented and vigorously star forming rotating molecular ring/disk, surrounding the deeply buried, and hence passified, AGN. The H, H2 and PAHs trace the interaction of the massive stars – interspersed within the ring, as indicated by the velocity behavior of the H and H2 lines – creating HII regions and PDRs. The extended continuum emission source created this way, forms the background against which we see the various absorption features. The contribution of the AGN to this continuum is insignificant, as may be concluded from the absence of a pointlike source in both the HST K-band image (Marconi et al. Marconi00 (2000)) and our ISAAC spectra. Hard X-ray observations have shown that the direct view of the AGN is blocked by a hydrogen column density of 1024.7 cm-2 (Iwasawa et al. Iwasawa93 (1993); A$`{}_{\mathrm{V}}{}^{}`$2500). The absence of the 3.94 $`\mu `$m $`[Si\text{ix}]`$ coronal line and other NLR fine structure lines (Fig. 2; Spoon et al. Spoon00 (2000)) from this region indicates that the ionizing radiation does not escape in other directions either. The shallow velocity curve of the cold CO gas is consistent with the CO being distributed in the outskirts of the nearly edge-on, rotating molecular ring/disk, of which the CO gas velocities are sampled only in front of the bright nuclear continuum, where the line of sight velocity component increases only slowly with projected distance (see Fig. 8). An indication of its scale can be obtained in the simplified assumption of absorption in a single ring rotating at 120 km/s. To reproduce the observed velocity gradient of CO absorption, the radius of this ring would be $``$7$`\mathrm{}`$ ($``$120 pc). Other distributions of absorbing material on similar scales, and in particular similar to the dust ring seen in the data of Marconi et al. (Marconi00 (2000)), will reproduce the data as well. The material seen in HI absorption by Ott et al. (Ott01 (2001)) and the rotating central ($`<`$20$`\mathrm{}`$) mm-wave CO emission likely belong to the same structure. Although there is no velocity information, we are tempted to co-locate the H2O, CO and OCN- ice with the CO gas. First, the solid H2O, CO and OCN- can be traced as far out as the gas phase CO (Fig. 6). Second, the optical depth of the solid state features is constant over the spatial range probed (except for the 1.7$`\mathrm{}`$ SW point in Fig. 6), implying co-location of the ices in a foreground position. Third, the filamentary structure seen at 1.7$`\mathrm{}`$ SW (position D) shows both deeper solid state features (Fig. 6) and a deviant CO gas velocity, suggesting co-location of the ices with the CO gas. Fourth, the absence of the pure CO ice component indicates grains which have been thermally processed to above 20 K. Hence, unlike for dark cloud lines of sight in our galaxy (such as Elias 16 in the Taurus molecular cloud), these ice grains are not located in some random, foreground, dark cloud along the line of sight, but instead close to a source of thermal heating. Fifth, the deep OCN- ice band shows that the ice is heavily processed. That again locates the ices within regions of massive star formation or close to the AGN rather than some foreground material. From the spatial extent and uniformity of the OCN- ice absorption (Fig. 6), a location close to the AGN can, however, be excluded. The only likely location therefore remain within or close to regions of massive star formation in the circumnuclear starburst. Indeed, within our own galaxy, the massive protostar W 33A is an extreme example of processed ices (Chiar et al. Chiar98 (1998); Gibb et al. Gibb00 (2000)). Dark cloud material in general does not show any evidence for the OCN- absorption band (Fig. 4d; Whittet et al. Whittet01 (2001)). In fact, no other Galactic, luminous protostar shows such a strong OCN- band.

The presence of OCN- in ice grain mantles is often taken as a sign of energetic processing by particles or UV photons. Recent experiments suggest however that also thermal processing may result in the formation of OCN- (F. van Broekhuizen, priv. comm.). A fouth possibity presents itself in the vicinity of an AGN: processing by AGN X-ray photons. The AGN in NGC 4945 is, however, strongly obscured and only hard X-ray photons manage to escape. Assuming similar obscuration towards the r$``$100 pc ice region in NGC 4945 as towards our line of sight, we estimate a hard X-ray (20–100 keV) flux of $``$0.5 erg/cm2/s from the observations of Guainazzi et al. (Guainazzi00 (2000)). This is two orders of magnitude less than the UV flux in a photon-dominated region next to massive stars (e.g. Tielens & Hollenbach Tielens85 (1985)). The available very hard (unabsorbed) AGN X-rays are hence energetically insignificant compared to the starburst UV photons. In addition, such hard X-rays may not couple efficiently into individual ice grains. Further laboratory studies are required to settle these issues.

The starburst in NGC 4945 is similar in luminosity to the prototypical starbursts M 82 and NGC 253 which are also located in the nuclear regions of almost edge-on galaxies. Comparing ISO spectra of NGC 4945 (Spoon et al. Spoon00 (2000)) to ISO data for M 82 and NGC 253 (Sturm et al. Sturm00 (2000); Förster Schreiber et al. Foerster03 (2003)), the obscuration of NGC 4945 is clearly higher towards the ionized medium (as derived from the 18.71/33.48 $`\mu `$m $`[S\text{iii}]`$ ratio in the low density limit), towards the PAH emitting medium (8.6 $`\mu `$m and 11.3 $`\mu `$m PAH emission features strongly suppressed by 9.7 $`\mu `$m silicate absorption), and in 3 $`\mu `$m water ice absorption ($`\tau _{\mathrm{ice}}`$2.5). It remains unclear, however, whether this is just an on average higher absolute absorbing column towards the nuclear region of NGC 4945, as perhaps not implausible given also the slightly smaller physical size of its starburst, or whether there are differences in the properties of the absorbing medium. Higher quality M band spectra of M 82 and NGC 253 are needed to test whether those starbursts also host processed ices as NGC 4945, but with columns corresponding to their lower obscuration.

The spectrum of the nearest edge-on galactic nucleus, our Galactic center, also shows absorption features due to CO and OCN- ice. The spectrum of GC:IRS 19 (Chiar et al. Chiar02 (2002)) shows the features at similar relative strengths as in W 33A and NGC 4945. The star itself (M star) is most likely not the source of the energetic processing. A chance projection with the processed surroundings of a young foreground star is possible, but also unlikely. The projected distance of GC:IRS 19 to the GC molecular ring is, however, small. The material in this ring is exposed to high UV fluxes from the central cluster, crudely comparable to the radiation field within the molecular ring in NGC 4945. It is hence plausible that energetic processing has created similar ice properties in both NGC 4945 and in the GC molecular ring. The ‘pencil beam’ line of sight to GC:IRS 19 may pass through this processed ring material, explaining the presence of strong OCN- absorption in the spectrum of GC:IRS 19. The larger beam 14$`\mathrm{}\times `$20$`\mathrm{}`$ ISO–SWS spectrum of Sgr A also shows CO and OCN- ice (Fig. 4; Moneti et al. Moneti01 (2001)). The OCN- column is, however, nearly an order of magnitude smaller than in the pencil beam towards GC:IRS 19. This difference is likely due to the large number of background stars within the ISO–SWS beam, whose combined line of sight results in the observed low OCN- optical depth. While some of these pencil beams pass through the processed GC molecular ring, other pencil beams only sample unprocessed foreground material. If the latter line of sight dominates within the 14$`\mathrm{}\times `$20$`\mathrm{}`$ ISO–SWS beam, this would be a natural explanation for the low OCN- optical depth in the Sgr A spectrum of Moneti et al. (Moneti01 (2001)).

The presence of processed ice in the centers of NGC 4945 and the Galaxy leads us to believe that processed ices are one characteristic of dense molecular material in star forming nuclear regions of galaxies, and can be detected in favorable orientations. The amount of processing may then be a measure of the nuclear star formation activity and/or geometry.

## 5 Conclusions

Using ISAAC at the VLT to obtain spectra at 2.85–4.10 $`\mu `$m and 4.55–4.80 $`\mu `$m, we have detected for the first time ‘XCN’ and CO ice in an extragalactic environment: the central region of the nearby dusty starburst/AGN galaxy NGC 4945.

The profile of the solid CO band reveals the importance of thermal processing of the ice while the prominence of the XCN band attests to the importance of energetic processing of the ice by FUV radiation, energetic particles and/or heating. In analogy to the processing of ices by embedded protostars in our Galaxy, we attribute the processing of the ices in the center of NGC 4945 to ongoing massive star formation.

Our M-band spectrum also shows strong HI Pf$`\beta `$ and H2 0–0 S(9) line emission and gas phase CO absorption lines. The HI, H2, gas phase CO and the ices seem to be embedded in a rotating molecular disk which is undergoing vigorous star formation.

The non-detection of the 3.94 $`\mu `$m $`[Si\text{ix}]`$ coronal line in our VLT/ISAAC L-band spectrum is in full agreement with the very high obscuration towards the AGN derived from mid-infrared coronal line observations and from the absence of a point-like source in K-band and N-band images. With the source of the obscuration probably close to the AGN for the obscuration to be effective, the radiation from the AGN cannot be responsible for processing the ices.

The obscuration towards the starburst in NGC 4945 is far higher than towards similar starbursts in M 82 and NGC 253, also seen nearly edge-on. It is unclear whether this is just an on average higher absolute absorbing column towards the nuclear region of NGC 4945, or whether there are differences in the properties of the absorbing medium. Higher quality M-band observations of M 82 and NGC 253 are required.

Recently, strong OCN- absorption has been detected in the spectrum of the Galactic center star GC:IRS 19. The most likely environment for the OCN- absorption is the strongly UV-exposed GC molecular ring. The presence of processed ice in the center of NGC 4945 and our Galactic center leads us to believe that processed ice may be a common characteristic of dense molecular material in star forming galactic nuclei.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors wish to thank Jean Chiar, Andrea Moneti and Alessandro Marconi for sharing data with us, Fernando Comeron for help in optimising our observing proposal and Adwin Boogert, Jean Chiar and Jacqueline Keane for discussions. The VLT-ISAAC data were obtained as part of an ESO Service Mode run.


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# Untitled Document

Tsemo Aristide,

Visitor, Toronto University

100 Georges Street

Toronto

tsemoaristide@hotmail.com

An Atiyah-Singer Theorem for gerbes.

Introduction.

This paper has been motivated by the following problem: Let $`M`$ be a compact riemannian manifold, the curvatures are very useful to study the topology of $`M`$. If the manifold $`M`$ is $`spin`$, the study of the bundles of spinors provides results in this way. Unfortunately every compact manifold is not spin. The obstruction to the existence of a $`spin`$structure on $`M`$ is the second Stiefel-Whitney class $`w_2(M)`$ of $`M`$. Nevertheless the class $`w_2(M)`$ is the classifying cocycle associated to a $`IZ/2`$ gerbe on $`M`$ that we call the $`spin`$ gerbe, which is according to Brylinski, and Mc Laughlin, an illuminating example of gerbe. The objects of this gerbe are naturally endowed with a riemannian metric, invariant by the automorphisms of the gerbe. It is natural to think that the study of this $`spin`$ gerbe can have topological applications. For example one may expect to generalize the Lichnerowicz theorem. On this purpose, we need first to prove an Atiyah-Singer type theorem for gerbes, which is our purpose.

1. On the notion of vectorial gerbes.

The aim of this section is to develop the notion of vectorial gerbes.

Definition 1.

Let $`M`$ be a manifold, a sheaf $`S`$ of categories on $`M`$, is a map $`US(U)`$, where $`U`$ is an open set of $`M`$, and $`S(U)`$ a category which satisfies the following properties:

\- To each inclusion $`UV`$, there exists a map $`r_{U,V}:S(V)S(U)`$ such that $`r_{U,V}r_{V,W}=r_{U,W}`$.

\- Gluing conditions for objects,

Consider a covering family $`(U_i)_{iI}`$ of an open set $`U`$ of $`B`$, and for each $`i`$, an object $`x_i`$ of $`S(U_i)`$, suppose that there exists a map $`g_{ij}:r_{U_iU_j,U_j}(x_j)r_{U_iU_j,U_i}(x_i)`$ such that $`g_{ij}g_{jk}=g_{ik}`$, then there exists an object $`x`$ of $`C(U)`$ such that $`r_{U_i,U}(x)=x_i`$

Gluing conditions for arrows,

Consider two objects $`P`$ and $`Q`$ of $`S(M)`$, then the map $`UHom(r_{U,M}(P),r_{U.M}(Q))`$ is a sheaf.

Moreover, if the following conditions are satisfied the sheaf of categories $`S`$ is called a gerbe

$`G1`$

There exists a covering family $`(U_i)_{iI}`$ of $`M`$ such that for each $`i`$ the category $`S(U_i)`$ is not empty

$`G2`$

Let $`U`$ be an open set of $`M`$, for each objects $`x`$ and $`y`$ of $`U`$, there exists a covering family $`(U_i)_{iI}`$ of $`U`$ such that $`r_{U_i,U}(x)`$ and $`r_{U_i,U}(y)`$ are isomorphic.

$`G3`$

Every arrow of $`S(U)`$ is invertible, and there exists a sheaf $`A`$ in groups on $`M`$, such that for each object $`x`$ of $`S(U)`$, $`Hom(x,x)=A(U)`$, and the elements of this family of isomorphisms commute with the restriction maps.

The sheaf $`A`$ is called the band of the gerbe $`S`$, in the sequel, we will consider only gerbes with commutative band.

Notation.

For a covering family $`(U_i)_{iI}`$ of $`B`$, and an object $`x_i`$ of $`S(U_i)`$, we denote by $`x_{i_1..i_n}^i`$ the element $`r_{(U_{i_1}..U_{i_n},U_i)}(x_i)`$, and by $`U_{i_1..i_n}`$ the intersection $`U_{i_1}..U_{i_n}`$.

Definition 2.

A gerbe is a vectorial gerbe if and only if for each open set $`U`$, the category $`S(U)`$ is a category of vector bundles over $`U`$ with typical fiber the vector space $`V`$ and maps between objects are isomorphisms of vector bundles. The vector space $`V`$ will be called the typical fiber of the vectorial gerbe. More precisely, there exists a covering family $`(U_i)_{iI}`$ of $`M`$, a commutative subgroup $`H`$ of $`Gl(V)`$, such that there exit maps $`g_{}^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}:U_iU_jGl(V)`$, which define isomorphisms

$$g_{ij}:U_iU_j\times VU_iU_j\times V$$

$$(x,y)(x,g_{ij}(x)y)$$

such that $`c_{ijk}=g_{ij}g_{jk}g_{ki}`$ is an $`H`$ $`2`$Cech cocycle.

Examples.

The Clifford gerbe associated to a riemannian structure.

Let $`M`$ be a $`n`$riemannian manifold, $`O(M)`$ the reduction of the bundle of linear frames which defines the riemannian structure of the manifold $`M`$. The bundle $`O(M)`$ is a locally trivial principal bundle over $`M`$ which typical fiber is $`O(n)`$. There is an exact sequence $`1IZ/2Spin(n)O(n)1`$, where $`Spin(n)`$ is the universal cover of $`O(n)`$. We can associate to this problem a gerbe which band is $`IZ/2`$ and such that for each open set $`U`$, $`Spin(U)`$ is the category of $`Spin(U)`$ bundles over $`U`$ such that the quotient of each of its element by $`IZ/2`$ is $`O(U)`$, the restriction of $`O(M)`$ to $`U`$. The classifying cocycle of this gerbe is the second Stiefel-Whitney class.

One can associate to this gerbe a vectorial gerbe named the Clifford gerbe $`Cl(M)`$. For each open set $`U`$ of $`M`$, $`Cl(U)`$ is the category which objects are Clifford bundles associated to the objects of $`Spin(U)`$. The gerbe $`Cl(M)`$ is a vectorial gerbe.

Let $`g_{}^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}`$ be the transitions functions of the bundle $`O(M)`$, for each map $`g_{ij}`$, consider an element $`g_{ij}`$ over $`g_{}^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}`$ in $`Spin(n)`$. The the element $`g_{ij}(x)`$ acts on $`Cl(IR^n)`$ by left multiplication, we will denote by $`h_{ij}(x)`$ the resulting automorphism of $`Cl(IR^n)`$. The Clifford gerbe is thus defined by $`h_{ij}:U_iU_jSpin(n)`$.

The gerbe defined by the lifting problem associated to a vectorial bundle.

Consider a vector bundle $`E`$ over $`M`$ which typical fiber is the vector space $`V`$. One can associate to $`E`$, a principal $`Gl(V)`$ bundle. We suppose that this bundle has a reduction $`E_K`$ where $`K`$ is a subgroup of $`Gl(V)`$. Consider a central extension $`1HGK1`$. This central extension defines a gerbe $`C_H`$ on $`M`$, such that for each open set $`U`$ of $`M`$, the objects of $`C_H(U)`$ are $`G`$principal bundles over $`U`$ which quotient by $`H`$ is the restriction of $`E_K`$ to $`U`$. We denote by $`\pi `$ the projection $`\pi :GK`$.

Suppose moreover defined a representation $`r:GGl(W)`$, and a surjection $`f:WV`$ such that the following square is commutative

$$\begin{array}{ccc}W& \frac{r(h)}{}& W\\ f& \\ & f\\ V& \frac{\pi (h)}{}& V\end{array}$$

then one can defined the vectorial gerbe $`C_{H,W}`$ on $`M`$ such that the object of $`C(U)`$ are $`e_Ur`$, where $`e_U`$ is an object of $`C_H(U)`$. Let $`(U_i)_{iI}`$ be a trivialization of $`E`$ defined by the transitions functions $`g_{}^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}`$, we consider a map $`g_{ij}:U_iU_jG`$ over $`g_{}^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}`$. The gerbe $`C_{H,W}`$ is defined by $`r(g_{ij})`$.

Let $`T`$ be the set of elements of $`W`$ fixed by elements of $`H`$. The action of $`G`$ on $`W`$ defines an action of $`K`$ on $`T`$. This action defines a vector bundle $`S_T`$ on $`M`$ with typical fiber is $`T`$. Let $`e_U`$ be an object of the category $`C_{H,W}`$. then the restriction of $`S_T`$ to $`U`$ is the set of elements of $`e_U`$ invariant by $`H`$.

Definition 3.

-A riemannian metric on a vectorial gerbe $`C`$ is defined by the following data:

For each objects $`e_U`$ of $`C`$, a riemannian metric $`<,>`$ on the vector bundle $`e_U`$ which is preserved by morphisms of between objects of $`C(U)`$. We remark that the band need to be contained in a compact group in this case since it preserves the riemannian metric.

An example of a scalar product on a gerbe is the following: consider the Clifford gerbe $`Cl(M)`$, we know that the group $`Spin`$ is a compact group, its action on $`Cl(IR^n)`$ preserves a scalar product. This scalar product defines on each fiber of an object $`e_U`$ of $`Cl(U)`$ a scalar product which defines, a riemannian metric $`<,>_{e_U}`$ on $`e_U`$. The family of riemannian metrics $`<,>_{e_U}`$ is a riemannian metric defined on the gerbe $`Cl(M)`$.

Definition 4.

\- A global section of a vectorial gerbe associated to a $`1`$Cech chain $`(g_{ij})`$ is defined by a covering space $`(U_i)_{iI}`$ of $`M`$, for each element $`i`$ of $`I`$, an object $`e_i`$ of $`C(U_i)`$, a section $`s_i`$ of $`e_i`$, a family of morphisms $`g_{ij}:e_j^ie_i^j`$ such that on $`U_{ij}`$ we have $`s_i=g_{ij}(s_j)`$.

Let $`(s_i)_{iI}`$ be an element of $`S(g_{ij})`$, on $`U_{ijk}`$ we have: $`s_j=g_{jk}(s_k)`$, $`s_i=g_{ij}(s_j)`$. This implies that $`s_i=g_{ij}g_{jk}(s_k)=g_{ik}(s_k)`$. Or equivalently $`g_{ik}^1g_{ij}g_{jk}(s_k)=s_k`$. Remark that the restriction of the element $`s_k`$ is not necessarily preserved by all the band.

Suppose that $`M`$ is compact, and $`I`$ is finite. We can suppose that there exists $`i_0`$ such that $`T=U_{i_0}_{ii_0}U_i`$ is not empty. Consider a section $`s_{i_0}`$ of $`e_{i_0}`$ which support is contained in $`T`$, then we can define a global section $`(u_i)_{iI}`$ such that $`u_{i_0}=s_{i_0}`$, and if $`ii_0`$, $`u_i=0`$. This ensures that $`S(g_{ij})`$ is not empty.

We will denote by $`S(g_{ij})`$ the family of global sections associated to $`(g_{ij})_{i,jI}`$. Remark that $`S(g_{ij})`$ is a vector space.

Proposition 5.

Suppose that the vectorial gerbe $`C`$ is the gerbe associated to the lifting problem defined by the extension $`1HGK1`$ and the vector bundle $`E`$. Let $`r:GGl(W)`$ be a representation, we suppose that the condition of the previous diagram is satisfied. Then each for $`G`$chain $`g_{ij}`$, each element $`(s_i)_{iI}`$ of the vector space of global sections $`S(g_{ij})`$, satisfies the following condition: there exists a section $`s`$ of $`E`$, such that $`s_{U_i}=fs_i`$.

Proof.

Let $`(s_i)_{iI}`$ be a global section associated to the chain $`S(g_{ij})`$, then on $`U_{ij}`$, we have $`s_i=g_{ij}(s_j)`$, this implies that on $`U_{ij}`$, $`f(s_i)=f(s_j)`$. Thus the family $`(f(s_i))_{iI}`$ of local sections of $`E`$ defines a global section $`s`$ of $`E`$.

Remark.

Let $`s`$ be a section of the bundle $`E`$, locally we can define a family of sections $`s_i`$ of $`e_i`$, such that $`f(s_i)=s_{U_i}`$. We can consider the chain $`s_{ij}=s_ig_{ij}(s_j)`$. We have $`s_{jk}s_{ik}+s_{ij}=s_{ijk}`$ is $`2`$cocycle. Whenever there exists a chain $`g_{ij}`$ a global section $`s=(s_i)_{iI}`$ such that $`s_i=g_{ij}(s_j)`$, and $`f(s_i)=s_{U_i}`$, it is not sure that such a global section exists for another chain $`h_{ij}`$. This motivates the following definition:

Definition 6.

We will define the vector space $`S`$ of formal global sections of the vector gerbe $`C`$, the vector space which generators are $`[s]`$ where $`s`$ is an element of a set of global sections $`S(g_{ij})`$.

The elements of $`S`$, are formal finite sum of global sections.

The Prehilbertian structure of $`S(g_{ij})`$.

First we remark that $`S(g_{ij})`$ is a vector space. Let $`s`$, and $`t`$ be elements of $`S(g_{ij})`$, we will denote by $`s_i`$ and $`t_i`$ the sections of $`e_i`$ which define respectively the global sections $`s`$ and $`t`$. We have $`s_i=g_{ij}(s_j)`$ and $`t_i=g_{ij}(t_j)`$ this implies that $`as_i+bt_i=g_{ij}(as_j+bt_j)`$ where $`a`$ and $`b`$ are real numbers.

\- The scalar structure of $`S(g_{ij})`$.

Let $`(V_k,f_k)_{kK}`$ be a partition of unity subordinate to $`(U_i)_{iI}`$, this means that for each $`k`$ there exists an $`i(k)`$ such that $`V_k`$ is a subset of $`U_{i(k)}`$. Since the support of $`f_k`$ is a compact subset of $`V_k`$, we can calculate $`<s_{ii(k)},t_{ii(k)}>`$ where $`s_{ii(k)}`$ and $`t_{ii(k)}`$ are the respective restrictions of $`s_{i(k)}`$ and $`t_{i(k)}`$ to $`V_k`$, remark that since we have supposed that $`s_i=g_{ij}(s_j)`$ and $`g_{ij}`$ is an riemannian isomorphism between $`e_j^i`$ and $`e_i^j`$, if $`V_k`$ is also included in $`U_j`$, then $`<s_{ii(k)},t_{ii(k)}>=<s_{jj(k)},t_{jj(k)}>`$ on $`V_k`$. We can define $`<s,t>=_k<f_ks_{ii(k)},f_kt_{ii(k)}>`$.

We will denote by $`L^2(S(g_{ij})`$ the Hilbert completion of the Pre Hilbert structure of $`(S(g_{ij}),<,>)`$.

The scalar structure on set of formal global sections $`S`$.

Let $`s`$ and $`t`$ be two formal global sections, we have $`s=[s_{n_1}]+..+[s_{n_p}]`$, and $`t=[t_{m_1}]+..+[t_{m_q}]`$, where $`s_{n_i}`$ and $`t_{m_j}`$ are global sections.

We will define a scalar product on $`S`$ as follows: if $`s`$ and $`t`$ are elements of the same set of global sections $`S(g_{ij})`$, $`<[s],[t]>=<s,t>_{S(g_{ij})}`$. If $`s`$ and $`t`$ are not elements of the same set of global sections, then $`<[s],[t]>=0`$.

Proposition 7.

An element of $`L^2(S(g_{ij}))`$ is a family of $`L^2`$ sections $`s_i`$ of $`e_i`$ such that $`s_i=g_{ij}(s_j)`$.

Proof.

Let $`(s^l)_{lN}`$ be a Cauchy sequence of $`(S(g_{ij}),<,>)`$. We can suppose that the open sets $`V_k`$ used to construct the riemannian metric are such that the restriction $`e_i^k`$ of $`e_i`$ to $`V_k`$ is a trivial vector bundle. The sequence $`(f_ks_{ii(k)}^l)`$ is a Cauchy sequence defined on on the support $`T_k`$ of $`f_k`$. Since this support is compact, we obtain that $`(f_ks_{ii(k)}^l)_{lN}`$ goes to an $`L^2`$ section $`s_{i(k)}`$ of $`e_i^k`$. We can define $`s_i=_{k,V_kU_i\varphi }f_ks_{i(k)}`$. The family $`(s_i)_{iI}`$ defines the requested limit.

Suppose that morphisms between objects commute with laplacian, we can then endow $`S(g_{ij})`$ with the prehilbertian structure defined by $`<u,v>=<\mathrm{\Delta }^s(u),v>`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }^s(u)`$ is the global section defined by $`\mathrm{\Delta }^s(u)_i=\mathrm{\Delta }^s(u_i)`$. We will denote by $`H_s(S(g_{ij}))`$ the Hilbert completion of this prehilbertian space.

We will define the formal $`s`$distributional global sections $`H_s(S)`$ as the vector space generated by finite sums $`[s_1]+..[s_k]`$ where $`s_i`$ is an element of an Hilbert space $`H_s(S(g_{ij}))`$.

Connection on riemannian gerbes and characteristic classes.

The notion of connection is not well-defined for general vectorial gerbe, nevertheless the existence of a riemannian structure on a vectorial gerbe, $`C`$, gives rise to a riemannian connection on each object $`e_U`$ of $`C(U)`$, this family of riemannian connections will be the riemannian connection of the gerbe $`C`$.

Let $`(U_i)_{iI}`$ be an open covering of $`M`$, suppose that the objects of $`C(U_i)`$ are trivial bundles. The riemannian connection of the object $`e_i`$ of $`C(e_i)`$ is defined by a $`1`$ $`so(V)`$ form $`w_i`$ on $`TU_i`$, and the covariant derivative of this connection evaluated to a section $`s_i`$ of $`e_i`$ is $`ds_i+w_is_i`$. The curvature of this connection is the $`2`$form $`\mathrm{\Omega }_i=dw_i+w_iw_i`$.

The $`2k^{eme}`$ Chern class of $`e_i`$, $`c_{}^{i}{}_{2k}{}^{}`$ is defined by $`Trace[(\frac{i}{2\pi }\mathrm{\Omega }_i)^k]`$. Let $`e_i^{}`$ be another object of $`C(U_i)`$. There exist isomorphisms $`\varphi _i:e_iU_i\times V`$, and $`\varphi _i^{}:e_i^{}U_i\times V`$., and $`g_i:e_ie_i^{}`$. The map $`\varphi _i^{}g_i\varphi _i^1`$ is an automorphism of $`U_i\times V`$ defined as follows:

$$h_i:(x,y)(x,u_i(x)y))$$

The riemannian $`\varphi _{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}<,>=\varphi _{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}<,>`$ is preserved by $`h_i`$. We have $`\varphi _{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{\Omega }_i=u_i\varphi _{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{\Omega }_i^{}u_{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}`$. This implies that $`c_{}^{i}{}_{2k}{}^{}=c_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{i}{}_{2k}{}^{}`$.

There exists an isomorphism between the respective restrictions $`e_j^i`$ and $`e_i^j`$ on $`U_i`$. As above we can show that this implies that the $`2k`$Chern classes of $`e_j^i`$ and $`e_i^j`$ coincide on $`U_iU_j`$, and defines a global class $`c_{2k}`$ on $`M`$ which is the $`2k`$ Chern class of the riemannian gerbe.

We can define the $`c(C)=c_1(M)+\mathrm{}+c_n(M)`$ the total Chern form of the gerbe, and the form define locally by $`ch(C)_{U_i}=Tr(exp(i\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2\pi }))`$ the total Chern character.

2. Operators on riemannian gerbe.

We begin by recalling the definition of pseudo-differential operators for open sets of $`IR^n`$ and manifolds.

Let $`U`$, be an open set of $`IR^n`$, we denote by $`S^m(U)`$ the set of smooth functions $`p(x,u)`$ defined on $`U\times IR^n`$, such that for every compact set $`KU`$, and every multi-indices $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$, we have $`D^\alpha D^\beta p(x,u)<C_{\alpha ,\beta ,K}(1+u)^{m\alpha }`$.

Let $`K(U)`$ and $`L(U)`$ denote respectively the smooth functions with compact support defined on $`U`$ and the smooth functions on $`U`$. We can define the map, $`P:K(U)L(U)`$ such that

$$P(f)=p(x,u)\widehat{f}(u)e^{i<x,u>}𝑑u$$

where $`\widehat{f}`$ is the Fourier transform of $`f`$.

Definition 1.

An operator on $`U`$ is pseudo-differential, if it is locally of the above type.

Definition 2.

Let $`P`$ be a pseudo-differential operator, $`(U_i)_{iI}`$ a covering family of $`U`$ such that the restriction of $`P`$ to $`U_i`$ is defined by $`P(f)=p_i(x,u)\widehat{f}(u)e^{i<x,u>}𝑑u`$. The operator is of degree $`m`$ if $`\sigma (p_{U_i})=lim_t\mathrm{}\frac{p_i(x,tu)}{t^m}`$ exists. In this case $`\sigma (p)`$ is called the symbol of $`P`$.

Let $`E`$ be a vector bundle over the riemannian manifold $`M`$, endowed with a scalar metric. We denote by $`K(E)`$ and $`L(E)`$ the respectively set of smooth sections of $`E`$ with compact support and the set of smooth sections of $`E`$. An operator on the vector bundle $`E`$, is a map $`P:K(E)L(E)`$ such that there exists a covering family $`(U_i)_{iI}`$ which satisfies:

\- The restriction of $`E`$ to $`U_i`$ is trivial

\- The restriction of $`P_i`$ of $`P`$ to $`U_i`$ is a map $`P_i:K(U_i\times V)L(U_i^{}\times V)`$ where $`V`$ is the typical fiber of $`E`$.

\- If we consider charts $`\varphi _i`$ and $`\psi _i`$ such that $`\varphi _i(U_i\times V)=\psi _i(U_i^{}\times V)=U\times IR^n`$, then the map $`P_i`$ is defined by the a matrix $`(p_{kl})`$ where $`p_{kl}`$ define an operator of degree $`m`$. More precisely, if $`s^{}`$ is a section of $`E`$ over $`U_i`$ and $`s=(s_1,..,s_n)=\varphi _i(s^{})`$, we can define $`t_k=_{l=1}^{l=n}p_{lk}(x,u)\widehat{s}_l(u)e^{i<x,u>}𝑑u`$, and $`P_i(s^{})=\psi _{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}(t_1,..,t_n)`$.

Consider $`SM`$ the sphere bundle of the cotangent space $`T^{}M`$ of $`M`$, and $`\pi ^{}E`$ the pull-back of $`E`$ to $`T^{}M`$, the symbols defined by $`(p_{ij})`$ define a map $`\sigma :\pi ^{}E\pi ^{}E`$. Consider now the projection $`\pi _S:SMM`$, then $`\sigma `$ induces a map $`\sigma _S:\pi _{S}^{}{}_{}{}^{}E\pi _{S}^{}{}_{}{}^{}E`$.

Let $`s`$ be a positive integer we denote by $`H_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{loc}(M,E)`$, the space of distributions sections $`u`$ of $`E`$ such that $`D(u)`$ is a $`L_{}^{2}{}_{}{}^{loc}`$ section, where $`D`$ is any differential operator of order less than $`s`$, and by $`H_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{comp}(M,E)`$ the subset of elements of $`H_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{loc}(M,E)`$ with compact support. Remark that if $`M`$ is compact, then $`H_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{loc}(M,E)=H_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{comp}(M,E)`$. We define by $`H_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{loc}(M,E)`$ to be the dual space of $`H_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{comp}(M,E)`$, and by $`H_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{comp}(M,E)`$ the dual space of $`H_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{loc}(M,E)`$.

The Sobolev space $`H_s`$ is an Hilbert space endowed with the norm defined by $`(<\mathrm{\Delta }^su,u>)^{\frac{1}{2}}`$.

Every operator $`P`$ of order less than $`m`$ can be extended to a continuous morphism $`H_sH_{sm}`$.

Definition 3.

Let $`C`$ be a riemannian gerbe defined on the manifold $`M`$, an operator $`D`$ of degree $`m`$ on $`C`$, is a family of operators $`D_e`$ of degree$`m`$ defined on $`e`$ where $`e`$ is an object of the category $`C(U)`$. We suppose that for each morphism $`g:ef`$, $`D_fg^{}=g^{}D_e`$.

Remark.

The last condition in the previous definition implies that $`D_e`$ is invariant by the automorphisms of $`e`$. The map $`g^{}`$ is the map which transforms a section $`s`$ to $`g(s)`$. The operator considered in the sequel will be assumed to be continue. It defines a map $`D_e:H_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{comp}(U,e)H_{sm}^{loc}(U,e)`$.

Proposition 4. Let $`D`$ be an operator of degree $`m`$ defined on the riemannian gerbe $`C`$, then $`D`$ induces a map $`D_{S(g_{ij})}:H_s(S(g_{ij}))H_{sm}(S(g_{ij}))`$ and a map $`D_S:H_s(S)H_{sm}(S)`$.

Proof.

Consider a global distributional section $`s`$ which is an element of $`H_s(S_{g_{ij}}))`$, we have $`g_{ij}(D_{e_j^i}(s_j^i))=D_{e_i^j}(s_i^j)`$. This implies the result.

In the sequel we will consider only pseudo-differential operators that preserve $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$ sections.

The symbol of an operator.

Let $`C`$ be a vectorial gerbe defined on $`M`$ endowed with the operator $`D`$ of degree $`m`$, for each object $`e`$ of $`C(U)`$, we can pulls back the bundle $`e`$ by the projection map $`\pi _{SU}:SUU`$ to a bundle $`\pi _{SU}^{}e`$ over $`SU`$, where $`SU`$ is the restriction of the cosphere bundle defined by a fixed riemannian metric of $`T^{}M`$. The family $`C_S(U)`$ which elements are $`\pi _{SU}^{}e`$ is a category. The maps between objects of this category are induced by maps between elements of $`C(U)`$. The map $`UC_S(U)`$ is a gerbe which has the same band than $`C`$.

Now on the object $`e`$, we can define symbol $`\sigma _{D_e}:\pi _{SU}^{}e\pi _{SU}^{}e`$.

Remark that for every automorphism $`g`$ of $`e`$, the fact that $`g^{}D_e=D_eg^{}`$ implies that $`\sigma _{gD_eg^1}=\sigma _{D_e}`$.

Proposition 5. Rellich Lemma for the family $`S(g_{ij})`$.

Let $`f_n`$ be a sequence of elements of $`H_s(S(g_{ij}))`$, we suppose that there is a constant $`L`$ such that $`f_n_s<L`$, then for every $`s>t`$, there exits a subsequence $`f_{n_k}`$ which converges in $`H_t`$.

Proof.

Let $`(s_n)`$ be a sequence of sections which satisfy the condition of the proposition, and $`(V_\alpha ,f_\alpha )`$ a partition of unity subordinate to $`(U_i)_{iI}`$. We suppose that the support of $`f_\alpha `$ is a compact space $`K_\alpha `$. We denote by $`s_n^i`$ the section of $`e_i`$ which defines $`s_n`$, and by $`s_{n\alpha }^i`$ the restriction of $`s_n^i`$ to the restriction of $`e_i`$ to $`V_\alpha `$. The family $`(f_\alpha s_{n\alpha }^i)`$ goes to the element $`s_{i\alpha }`$ in $`V_\alpha `$ by the classical Rellich lemma. We can write then $`s^i=_{V_\alpha U_i}f_\alpha s_{i\alpha }`$. this is an $`H_t`$ map since the family of $`V_\alpha `$ can be supposed to be finite, since $`M`$ is compact. The family $`(s^i)`$ define a global $`H_s`$ section which is the requested limit.

Remark.

A compact operator between Hilbert space is an operator which transforms bounded spaces to compact spaces. The previous lemma implies that if $`s>t`$, then the inclusion $`H_s(S(g_{ij}))H_t(S(g_{ij}))`$ is compact, since as $`H_s(S(g_{ij}))`$ is a separate space, a compact subspace of $`H_s(S(g_{ij}))`$ is a set such that we can extract a convergent sequence from every bounded sequence.

Proposition 6.

The space $`Op(C)`$ of continuous linear maps of $`H_s(S(g_{ij}))`$ is a Banach space.

Proof.

Let $`D_n`$ be a Cauchy sequence of elements of $`Op(C)`$, for each global section $`s`$, the sequence $`D_n(s)`$ is a Cauchy sequence in respect to the norm of $`H_s`$, we conclude that it goes to an element $`D(s)`$. The map $`D:sD(s)`$ is the requested limit. It is bounded since $`(D_n)_{nN}`$ is a Cauchy sequence.

The previous Lemma allows us to define $`O^m`$, the completion of the pseudo-differential operators in $`OP(C)`$ of order $`m`$, and to extend the symbol $`\sigma `$ to $`O^m`$.

Now we will show that the kernel of the extension of the symbol to $`O^m`$ contains only compact operators.

Definition 7.

We say that an operator is elliptic if the family of symbol $`\sigma _{D_e}`$ are invertible maps.

Proposition 8.

The kernel of the f of the symbol map contains only compact operators.

Proof.

The symbol $`\sigma (P)`$ of the operator $`P`$ is zero if and only if the order $`m`$ of the operator is less than $`1`$. This implies that the operator $`P`$ is compact. To see it, we can suppose our operator to be an $`L^2(S(g_{ij}))`$ operator, by composing it by the inclusion map $`H_{2s}(S(g_{ij}))L^2(S(g_{ij})`$, we conclude by using the previous Rellich lemma.

3. $`K`$theory and the index.

In this part we will give the definitions of the $`K`$theory groups $`K_0`$, and $`K_1`$, and show how we can use them to associate to a symbol of an operator on a gerbe, an element of $`K_0(T^{}M)`$.

We will denote by $`M_n`$ the vector space of $`n\times n`$ complex matrix. For $`nm`$, we consider the natural injection $`M_nM_m`$. We will call $`M_{\mathrm{}}`$, the inductive limit of the vector spaces $`M_n,nIN`$.

Let $`R`$ be a ring and $`p`$, and $`q`$ be two idempotents of $`R_{\mathrm{}}=RM_{\mathrm{}}`$, we will say that $`pq`$ if and only if there exists elements $`u`$ and $`v`$ of $`R_{\mathrm{}}`$ such that $`p=uv`$, and $`q=vu`$. We denote by $`[p]`$ the class of $`p`$, and by $`Idem(R_{\mathrm{}})`$ the set of equivalence classes.

If $`[p]`$ and $`[q]`$ are represented respectively by elements of $`RM_n`$ and $`RM_m`$, we can define an idempotent of $`RM_{n+m}`$ represented by the matrix $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}p& 0\\ 0& q\end{array}\right)=[p+q].`$

Definition 1.

We will denote by $`K_0(R)`$, the semi-group $`Idem(R_{\mathrm{}})`$, endowed with the law $`[p]+[q]=[p+q]`$.

Let $`M`$ be a compact manifold, and $`C(M)`$ the set of complex valued functions on $`M`$. It is a well-known fact that for a complex vector bundle $`V`$ on $`M`$, there exists a bundle $`W`$, such that $`VW`$ is a trivial bundle isomorphic to $`M\times IC^k`$. We can thus identify a vector bundle over $`M`$ to an idempotent of $`C(X)M_k`$ which is also an idempotent of $`C(X)_{\mathrm{}}`$. This enables to identify $`K_0(M)`$ to $`K_0(C(X))`$.

In fact the semi-group $`K(R)`$ is a group.

Let $`Gl_k(R)`$ be the group of invertible elements of $`M_k(R)`$, if $`lk`$ we have the canonical inclusion map $`Gl_l(R)Gl_k(R)`$. We will denote by $`Gl_{\mathrm{}}(R)`$, the inductive limit of the groups $`Gl_k(R)`$.

Definition 2.

Let $`Gl_{\mathrm{}}(R)_0`$ be the connected component of $`Gl_{\mathrm{}}(R)`$. We will denote by $`K_1(R)`$ the quotient of $`Gl_{\mathrm{}}(R)`$ by $`Gl_{\mathrm{}}(R)_0`$.

For a compact manifold $`M`$, we define $`K_1(M)`$ by $`K_1(C(X))`$.

Consider now an exact sequence $`0R_1R_2R_30`$ of $`C^{}`$ algebras, we have the following exact sequences in $`K`$theory:

$$K_1(R_1)K_1(R_2)K_1(R_3)K_0(R_1)K_0(R_2)K_0(R_3)$$

Let $``$ be an Hilbert space, we denote by $`B()`$ the space of continuous operators defined on $``$, and $`𝒦`$ the subspace of compact continuous operators. We have the following exact sequence:

$$0𝒦B()B()/𝒦=Ca0.$$

It is a well-known fact that $`K_0(𝒦)=IZ`$.

Let $`M`$ be a riemannian manifold, and $`C`$ a riemannian gerbe defined on $`M`$. Consider an elliptic operator $`D`$ defined on $`C`$, of degree $`l`$. The operator $`D`$ induces a morphism: $`D:L^2(S(g_{ij}))H_{2l}(S(g_{ij}))`$. Consider the operator $`(1\mathrm{\Delta })^m`$ of degree $`l`$. The operator $`D^{}=(1\mathrm{\Delta })^mD`$ is a morphism of $`L^2(S(g_{ij}))`$. The symbol of $`(1\mathrm{\Delta })^mD=\sigma (D)`$. This implies that the image of the operator $`D`$ in the Calkin algebra $`L^2(S(g_{ij}))`$ is invertible. It thus define a class $`[\sigma (D^{})]`$ of $`K_1(Ca)`$. The image of $`[\sigma (D^{})]`$ in $`K_0(𝒦)`$ is the index of $`D`$. We remark that the index of the operator depends only of the symbol.

For every object $`e`$ of $`C(U)`$, the symbol $`\sigma (D_e)`$ is an automorphism of $`\pi _{SU}e`$, it defines an element $`[\sigma (D_e)]`$ of $`K_1(C(S(U)))`$ (recall that $`S(U)`$ is the cosphere bundle over $`U`$ defined by the riemannian metric).

Remark.

Let $`U`$ be an open set such that the objects of $`C(U)`$ are trivial bundles. Consider an object $`e`$ of $`C(U)`$, and a trivialization map $`\varphi _e:eU\times V`$. For every object $`f`$ of $`C(U)`$, we have $`\varphi _{e}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}{}_{}{}^{}(\sigma _{D_e})=\varphi _{f}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}{}_{}{}^{}(\sigma _{D_f})`$.

Proposition 3.

Let $`C`$ be a vectorial gerbe defined over the compact manifold $`M`$, there is a trivial complex bundle $`f_m=M\times IC^m`$ such that each object of $`C(U)`$ where $`U`$ is an open set of $`M`$ is isomorphic to a subbundle of the restriction of $`f_m`$ to $`U`$.

Proof.

Let $`(U_i)_{iI}`$ be a finite covering family such that for each $`i`$ the objects of the category $`C(U_i)`$ are trivial bundles. Let $`e_U`$ be an object of $`C(U)`$, the restriction $`e_i`$ of $`e`$ to $`U_i`$ is a trivial vectorial bundle. We consider a fixed object $`e_i^0`$ of $`C(U_i)`$. Consider a finite partition of unity $`(f_p)_{p1,..,l}`$ subordinate to the covering family $`(U_i)`$, and $`g_i:e_i^0V`$ the composition of the trivialization and the second projection. Let $`h_i:e_ie_i^0`$, we can define the map $`k:e_UIC^{ldimV}`$ such that $`k(x)=(f_1(\pi _{e_U}(x))g_1h_1(x),..,f_l(\pi _{e_U}(x))g_lh_l(x))`$. $`k`$ induces a map $`K:MG_m(IC^N)`$, where $`m=dimV`$ and $`N=ldim(V)`$. $`e_U`$ is the pulls-back of the canonical $`m`$vector bundle over $`G_m(IC^N)`$. We remark that its a subbundle of the pulls-back of the trivial bundle $`G_m(IC^N)\times IC^N`$.

The orthogonal bundle of $`e_U`$ in the previous result can be chosen canonically by considering the orthogonal bundle of the canonical $`IC^m`$ bundle over $`G_m(IC^N)`$ in $`G_m(IC^N)\times IC^N`$. We will suppose that this bundle is chosen canonically in the sequel.

Proposition 4.

Let $`C`$ be a riemannian gerbe defined over the compact manifold $`M`$. Then we can associate naturally to the symbol of the elliptic operator $`D`$ a class $`[\sigma _D]`$ in $`K_1(T^{}M)`$.

Proof.

Let $`(U_i)_{iI}`$, a finite covering family of $`M`$ such that for each $`i`$, each object of $`e_i`$ is a trivial bundle. Consider for each $`i`$ a trivialization $`\varphi _i:e_iU_i\times V`$, The map $`\varphi _{}^{1}{}_{}{}^{}(\sigma _{D_{e_i}})`$ is an automorphism of the bundle $`\varphi _{i}^{1}{}_{}{}^{}(\pi _{S}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(e))=S_e(U_i)`$. This enables to extend $`\varphi _{}^{1}{}_{}{}^{}(\sigma _{D_{e_i}})`$ to a morphism of the restriction of $`f_m`$ to $`U_i`$ completing by $`1`$ on the diagonal since the orthogonal of $`e_U`$ is chosen canonically. It results a morphism $`\sigma _D^{}`$ of $`C(M)IC^m`$, that is as an element of $`C(S^{}M)Gl(V)`$.

This element defines the requested element $`[\sigma _D^{}]`$ of $`K_1(C(S^{}M)M_k)K_1(C(S^{}M))`$.

Let $`B^{}M`$ be the compactification of $`T^{}M`$ with fibers isomorphic to the unit ball. We consider the bundle $`B^{}M/T^{}M`$ that we can identify to the sphere bundle $`S^{}M`$. We have the following exact sequence

$$0C_0(T^{}M)C(B^{}M)C(S^{}M)0.$$

This sequence gives rise to the following exact sequence in $`K`$theory:

$$K_1(C(S^{}M)M_k)K_0(C(T^{}M)M_k)K_0(C(B^{}M)M_k)K_0(C(S^{}M)M_k)0.$$

We can define the boundary $`\delta ([\sigma _D^{}])`$ which is an element of $`K_0(T^{}MM_k)K_0(T^{}M)`$.

Proposition 5.

The index of $`D`$ depends only of the class of $`\delta [\sigma _D^{}]`$ in $`K_0(T^{}M)`$.

Proof.

We remark that the kernel of the image of a symbol by the map $`K_1(S^{}MM_k)K_0(T^{}MM_k)`$ is zero, if it is the restriction of a map defines on $`B^{}M`$. This implies that this symbol is homotopic to a function which does not depend of the second variable $`u`$. Thus the operator it defines is homotopic to a multiplication by a constant which index is zero.

E. Meinrenken asked me the following question:

Let $`M`$ be a manifold which is the union of two open sets $`U_1`$ and $`U_2`$ such that there exists objects $`e_1`$ and $`e_2`$ of the respective categories $`C(U_1)`$ and $`C(U_2)`$. Given operators $`D_{e_1}`$ and $`D_{e_2}`$ on $`e_1`$ and $`e_2`$ is it possible to associate to these operators an element of the $`K`$theory? We do not request any compatibility between $`D_{e_1}`$ and $`D_{e_2}`$.

The vectors bundles $`e_1`$ and $`e_2`$ are subbundles of the respective trivial bundles $`U_1\times IC^k`$ and $`U_2\times IC^k`$. Let $`SU_1`$ and $`SU_2`$ be the restriction of the sphere bundle of the cotangent space of $`M`$ to $`U_1`$ and $`U_2`$, we can canonically extends the symbols of $`D_{e_1}`$ and $`D_{e_2}`$, to respective automorphisms $`\sigma _{D_1}`$ and $`\sigma _{D_2}`$ of $`F_1=SU_1\times IC^k`$, and $`F_2=SU_2\times IC^k`$, thus elements of $`K_1(C(U_1)M_k)=K_1(C(U_1))`$, and $`K_1(C(U_2)M_k)=K_1(C(U_2))`$, where $`C(U_1)`$ and $`C(U_2)`$ are respectively the set of differentiable functions of $`U_1`$ and $`U_2`$.

The Mayer-Vietoris sequence for algebraic $`K`$theory gives rise to the sequence

$$K_2(C(S(U_1U_2))K_1(C(SM))K_1(C(SU_1))K_1(C(SU_2))K_1(C((S(U_1U_2)))$$

if the image of $`[\sigma _{D_{e_1}}]+[\sigma _{D_{e_2}}]`$ in the previous sequence is zero, then there exists a class $`[\sigma _D]`$ of $`K_1(SM)`$, which image by the map of the previous exact sequence is the element $`[\sigma _{D_{e_1}}]+[\sigma _{D_{e_2}}]`$ of $`K_1(C(SU_1)K_1(C(SU_2))`$. The class $`[\sigma _D]`$ is not necessarily unique.

The index formula for operator on gerbes.

Now, we will deduce an Atiyah-Singer type theorem for riemannian gerbe. We know that the Chern character of the cotangent bundle induces an isomorphism:

$$K_0(T^{}M)IRH_c^{even}(M,IR)$$

$$xttch(x)$$

Consider $`Vect(Ind)`$ the subspace of $`K_0(T^{}M)`$ generated by $`\sigma _P`$, where $`P`$ is an operator on the riemannian gerbe. It can be considered as a subspace of $`H_c^{even}(M,IR)`$. The map $`Vect(\sigma _P)IR`$ determined by $`ch([\sigma P^{}])ind(P)`$ can be extended to a linear map $`H_{c}^{}{}_{}{}^{even}(M,IR)IR`$.

The Poincare duality implies the existence of a class $`t(M)`$ such that

$$Ind(P)=_{T^{}M}ch([\sigma _P^{}])t(M)$$

4. Applications.

We will apply now this theory to the problem that has motivated is construction.

Let $`M`$ be a riemannian manifold, consider the Clifford gerbe on $`M`$,

Let $`(U_i)_{iI}`$ be an open covering of $`M`$, the riemannian connection $`w_{Civ}`$ is defined by a family of $`so(n)`$ forms $`w_i`$ on $`U_i`$ which satisfy $`w_j=adg_{ij}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}w_i+g_{ij}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}dg_{ij}`$. The covariant derivative of the Levi-Civita connection is $`d+w_i`$. We will fixes an orthogonal basis $`(e_1,..,e_n)`$ of the tangent space $`TU_i`$ of $`U_i`$. and write $`w_i=_{k=1}^{k=n}w_{ik}e_k`$.

we can define the spinorial covariant derivative by setting $`\varphi _{ij}=\frac{1}{4}w_{ij}`$. In the orthogonal basis $`(e_1,..,e_n)`$ we have $`\varphi _{e_j}=_{k,l}\varphi _{kl}^{}{}_{kl}{}^{}e_ke_l`$, with $`\varphi _{kl}=\varphi _{lk}`$.

The Dirac operator.

Let $`e_U`$ be an object of $`Cl(U)`$, $`U_i`$ a trivialization of $`Cl(U)`$, we will define $`D_{e_U}=_{k=1}^{k=n}e_i_{spin}^{}{}_{e_i}{}^{}`$,

On each object $`e_U`$ of $`C(U)`$, we have the Lichnerowicz-Weitzenbock formula: $`D^2=^{}+\frac{1}{4}s`$, where $`s`$ is the scalar curvature. In this formula $`^{}`$ is the connection laplacian.

We will say the global spinor is harmonic if $`D_{e_i}(s_i)=0`$, for each $`s_i`$.

Proposition 1.

Suppose that the scalar curvature $`s`$ of $`M`$ is strictly positive, and $`M`$ is compact then every harmonic global spinor is $`0`$.

Proof.

Let $`\psi `$ be an harmonic global spinor, we can represent $`\psi `$ by a family of spinor $`s_i`$ defined on an open cover $`(U_i)_{iI}`$ of $`M`$, we have on each $`U_i`$, $`D_{e_i}(s_i)=0`$, this implies that $`D_{e_i}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}(s_i)=0`$, we can write

$$_{U_i}^{}s_i+\frac{1}{4}s=0$$

this implies that $`_Ms=0`$, which contradicts the fact that the scalar curvature is strictly positive.

Corollary 2. Suppose that the sectional curvature of a compact riemannian manifold is strictly positive then the class $`\tau (M)`$ associated to the index formula for operators on the $`Cl(M)`$ gerbe is zero.

Acknowledgements. The author would like to thanks E. Meinrenken for helpful comments.

Bibliography.

1. Atiyah, M. Singer, I. The index of elliptic operators, I. Ann. of Math (87) 1968, 484-530.

2. Brylinski, J. Mc Laughin The geometry of degree-four characteristic classes and line bundles on loop spaces I. Duke Math. Journal (75) 603-637

3. Charles, J. Cours de maitrise de mathematique

4. Van Erp, E. The Atiyah-Singer index theorem, $`C^{}`$ algebraic $`K`$theory and quantization Master thesis, University of Amsterdam

5. Tsemo, A. The differentiable geometry of discrete vectorial gerbes, in preparation.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

One way to describe phenomenological interesting models in 4 dimensions with $`𝒩`$=1 supersymmetry is to consider M-theory on a 7-manifold with $`G_2`$ holonomy. In this case the 4-form field is trivial, but one may ask whether one can turn on a non-trivial 4-form flux in the internal space while still keeping the flat 4-d Minkowski space with four unbroken supercharges. Over the past years this question has been explored in different directions with more or less restrictive assumptions. In a number of papers the existence of BPS solutions with non-trivial fluxes are excluded, see e.g. , or a non-trivial superpotential appears see e.g. . Other no-go theorems base on discussions of the equations of motion . But most of the no-theorem statements have restrictive assumptions, as e.g. a compact internal space without sources or a semi-definite potential. In many models this is not the case and in fact, in the literature one can find examples of M-theory compactifications in the presence of fluxes  as well as examples of 10-d string theory with fluxes that yield a flat 4-dimensional vacuum . The essential ingredient of these string theory compactifications are non-trivial $`SU(3)`$ structures (i.e. torsion) as well as a warped geometry, see also . Moreover, it is well-known that one can compactify M-theory in presence of 4-form fluxes to a $`D`$=4, $`𝒩`$=1 anti de Sitter vacuum , i.e. the corresponding superpotential has a non-vanishing extremum. Similar to the string theory compactifications, this solution involves non-trivial $`G`$ structures, where the torsion 3-form, that parallelizes the 7-manifold (deformed $`𝕊^7`$), is the dual of the 4-form on the 7-manifold .

In this note we attempt to clarify different aspects. We will especially relax the assumption, made in a number of papers, that the 11-dimensional spinor is a direct product of the 4-spinor and 7-spinor, see also . With this in mind, we can summarize our assumptions as follows. We are looking for M-theory configurations that allow upon (warp) compactifications a flat Minkowski space with four unbroken supercharges. In order to keep Lorentz symmetry, we assume that all Kaluza-Klein vector fields are trivial yielding a block-diagonal form of the metric and allowing only for internal components of the 4-form field. Our ansatz for the 11-d metric and 4-form field strength reads therefore

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill ds^2& =& e^{2A}\eta _{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu +e^{2B}h_{mn}dy^mdy^n\hfill \\ \hfill F& =& F_{mnpq}dy^mdy^ndy^pdy^q\hfill \end{array}$$
(1)
where $`A=A(y)`$ and $`B=B(y)`$ are functions of the coordinates of the 7-manifold with the metric $`h_{mn}`$. We omitted Lorentz-invariant 4-form field components like $`F_{\mu \nu \rho \lambda }ϵ_{\mu \nu \rho \lambda }`$, which cannot be embedded into a flat Minkowski space and yield an anti de Sitter vacuum. As we will see the 11-d Killing spinor equations can be solved only, if the 7-manifold described by the metric $`h_{mn}`$: (i) has $`G_2`$-holonomy with trivial fluxes and warp factors or (ii) allows for more than one Killing spinors, which implies that the 7-manifold has to have a Killing vector and yields effectively a reduction to a 6-manifold. It is important to realize that supersymmetry requires non-trivial $`SU(3)`$ structures on this 6-manifold which are related to a non-trivial antisymmetric tensor field; otherwise warp compactifications111From the 4- or 5-dimensional point of view it is interesting to note the close relationship of flux or warp compactifications, gauged supergravity and the attractor mechanism, which gives an explaination of the fixing of (vector) moduli in these compactifications . of 10-dimensional string models are known to break supersymmetry or yield a non-flat 4-dimensional vacuum . But before we come to the discussion of this issue, we will start with general remarks about Killing spinors and the resulting holonomy.

## 2 Covariantly constant spinors and holonomy

We use the convention $`\{\mathrm{\Gamma }^A,\mathrm{\Gamma }^B\}=2\eta ^{AB}`$ with $`\eta =\mathrm{diag}(,+,+\mathrm{}+)`$ and we decompose the 11-d $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-matrices as (see also )

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu =\widehat{\gamma }^\mu 𝕀,\mathrm{\Gamma }^{m+3}=\widehat{\gamma }^5\gamma ^m$$
(2)
with $`\mu =0,1,2,3`$, $`m=1,2,\mathrm{},7`$. Moreover, in our conventions we have

$$\widehat{\gamma }^5=i\widehat{\gamma }^0\widehat{\gamma }^1\widehat{\gamma }^2\widehat{\gamma }^3,\gamma ^1\gamma ^2\gamma ^3\gamma ^4\gamma ^5\gamma ^6\gamma ^7=i$$
(3)
yielding

$$\frac{i}{3!}ϵ^{mnpqabc}\gamma _{abc}=\gamma ^{mnpq}\gamma ^{[m}\gamma ^n\gamma ^p\gamma ^{q]}.$$
(4)
In addition to the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-matrices we have to decompose the 11-d spinor into an anti-commuting 4-spinor and a commuting 7-spinor. The spinor on the Euclidean 7-manifold has to be (pseudo) Majorana, where the identity can be chosen as charge conjugation matrix and the $`\gamma `$-matrices become up to an overall factor of “i” real and antisymmetric. If this 7-manifold allows for commuting spinors $`\theta ^k`$, one can construct differential forms in the usual way

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{a_1\mathrm{}a_n}^{kl}=(i)^n\theta ^k\gamma _{a_1\mathrm{}a_n}\theta ^l.$$
(5)
Obviously these forms are covariantly constant if the spinor is covariantly constant, but let us stress that this does not need to be the case! Since $`(\gamma _{a_1\mathrm{}a_n})^T=()^{\frac{n^2+n}{2}}\gamma _{a_1\mathrm{}a_n}`$ it follows that this form is antisymmetric in $`[k,l]`$ for $`n=1,2,5,6`$ and symmetric for $`n=0,3,4,7`$. Thus, if there is more than one covariantly constant Killing spinor, one can always construct at least one covariantly constant vector and if the Killing spinor is globally well-defined, one can always find a coordinate system so that the corresponding $`U(1)`$ fiber in the metric is trivial; or in other words the 7-manifold factorizes into $`\times 𝕏_6`$. For the case with just two Killing spinors ($`k,l=1,2`$) we obtain one covariantly constant vector and $`𝕏_6`$ should not be factorisable. In addition there is one 2-form and three 3-forms, for which (5) is symmetric in $`(k,l)`$. By doing Fierz re-arrangements one can show, see , that the 2-form lives only on $`𝕏_6`$ whereas the 3-forms combine into one complex 3-form on $`𝕏_6`$ and one 3-form extending along $``$. This identifies $`𝕏_6`$ as a complex-3-dimensional space with $`SU(3)`$ holonomy. If there are four covariantly constant spinors ($`i,j=\mathrm{1..4}`$) the situation becomes even more involved. Now, one can construct six 1-forms and six 2-forms, which are consistent with the splitting $`^3\times 𝕐_2`$. In fact, regarding the 7-space as a fibration of a 3-space over a 4-space, three of the covariantly constant vectors make the fibration trivial yielding a product space and the remaining three 1-forms ensure that the 3-space is $`^3`$. The six 2-forms split now in three 2-forms supported by $`^3`$ and the remaining 2-forms identify the 4-space as a hyper Kaehler space which has $`SU(2)`$ holonomy. We do not need to discuss here the case of maximal supersymmetry related to eight covariantly constant spinors, because the space becomes trivial.

Let us come back to the case of just one Killing spinor and consider first the case where this spinor is covariantly constant with respect to a metric $`h_{mn}`$, i.e.

$$0=^{(h)}\theta \left[d+\frac{1}{4}\omega ^{mn}\gamma _{mn}\right]\theta $$
(6)
where $`\omega ^{mn}`$ is the spin-connection 1-form. If this equation has only one solution the holonomy group of the space must be equal to $`G_2`$ and since the spinor is covariantly constant, its holonomy is trivial and hence is a $`G_2`$ singlet. The unrestricted holonomy of an orientable 7-manifold is $`SO(7)`$ and in order to decompose the adjoint representation of $`SO(7)`$: $`\mathrm{𝟐𝟏}\mathrm{𝟏𝟒}+\mathrm{𝟕}`$ under its maximal compact subgroup $`G_2`$ one introduces two projectors $`_{\mathrm{𝟕}/\mathrm{𝟏𝟒}}`$ (corresponding to the 3-form $`\phi `$ defined in (8))

$$_{\mathrm{𝟏𝟒}mn}^{pq}\frac{2}{3}(𝕀_{mn}^{pq}\frac{1}{4}\psi _{mn}^{pq}),_{\mathrm{𝟕}mn}^{pq}\frac{1}{3}(𝕀_{mn}^{pq}+\frac{1}{2}\psi _{mn}^{pq}).$$
(7)
where $`𝕀_{mn}^{pq}=\delta _{[m}^p\delta _{n]}^q`$ and $`\psi _{mnpq}`$ is the $`G_2`$-invariant 4-index object, which is defined in the tangent space and coincides with the covariantly constant 4-form as introduced in (5). This 4-form is dual to a 3-form and the requirement that both forms are closed gives equations for the vielbeine. For a given set of vielbeine $`e^m`$ the 3-form can be written as

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \phi =\frac{1}{3!}\phi _{abc}e^ae^be^c& =e^1e^2e^7+e^1e^3e^5e^1e^4e^6\hfill \\ & e^2e^3e^6e^2e^4e^5+e^3e^4e^7+e^5e^6e^7\hfill \end{array}$$
(8)
Both $`G_2`$-invariant forms fulfill a number of useful relations  and for later convenience we will note, that

$$\psi _{mnpq}\phi ^{qkl}=6\phi _{[mn}^{[k}\delta _{p]}^{l]},\phi _{kmn}\phi ^{mnl}=6\delta _k^l.$$
(9)
The spin connection transforms as a product of a vector- and tensor-representation of $`SO(7)`$, where the tensor part is just the adjoint representation. One decomposes now this tensor ($`\mathrm{𝟐𝟏}\mathrm{𝟕}+\mathrm{𝟏𝟒}`$) by inserting the identity $`𝕀=_{\mathrm{𝟏𝟒}}+_\mathrm{𝟕}`$, i.e.

$$\left[\frac{1}{4}\omega ^{mn}\gamma _{mn}\right]\theta =\left[\frac{1}{4}\omega ^{mn}𝕀_{mn}^{pq}\gamma _{pq}\right]\theta $$

where $`_\mathrm{𝟕}`$ projects onto the 7 and $`_{\mathrm{𝟏𝟒}}`$ onto the 14, which is the adjoint of $`G_2`$. One solves now equation (6) for a constant spinor $`\theta `$ by requiring that the projection of the spin connection onto the 7 vanishes (so that it represents a $`G_2`$ generator) and that the spinor does not transform under $`G_2`$, i.e. the spinor is a zero mode of the $`G_2`$ generators (i.e. the 14), see also  for more details. So, one obtains the equations

$`_{\mathrm{𝟕}mn}^{pq}\omega ^{mn}`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (10)
$`_{\mathrm{𝟏𝟒}mn}^{pq}\gamma _{pq}\theta `$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (11)
Note, the first equation gives first order differential equations for the metric $`h_{mn}`$ and the second equation projects out seven of the eight spinor components. In a number of papers explicit examples have been discussed over the past years, see e.g. . We will not discuss the first order differential equations for the metric, but we want to bring the projector constraint on $`\theta `$ in another form by multiplying it with $`\gamma ^{mn}`$ which gives

$$\gamma ^{mn}_{\mathrm{𝟏𝟒}mn}^{pq}\gamma _{pq}\theta =\left[𝕀+\frac{1}{\mathrm{7\hspace{0.17em}4}!}\psi ^{mnpq}\gamma _{mnpq}\right]\theta =\left[𝕀+i\frac{1}{\mathrm{7\hspace{0.17em}3}!}\phi _{mnp}\gamma ^{mnp}\right]\theta =0$$
(12)
where we used the relation (4) and $`\psi ={}_{}{}^{}\phi `$.

Up to now we were assuming that the spinors are covariantly constant with respect to the Levi-Civita connection, but this is highly restrictive. In general the 7-spinor does not need to be covariantly constant and neither are the differential forms in (5). This is the case if one takes into account non-trivial $`G_2`$-structures, where the deviation from the covariantly constance can be absorbed into non-trivial torsion terms entering a generalized connection. Let us summarize some basic features, for more details see e.g. . The 3- and 4-form should still be $`G_2`$ invariant and coincide in the tangent space with the expressions that we discussed so far. Also the decomposition of the $`SO(7)`$ tensor representation under $`G_2`$ in terms of the projectors $`_{\mathrm{𝟕}/\mathrm{𝟏𝟒}}`$ is unchanged so that one gets the same projector acting on the spinor $`\theta `$ in (11), that again projects out seven of the eight spinor components. The inclusion of torsion means however, that the projection of the Levi-Civita connection onto the 7 is now non-vanishing and given by the different torsion classes. This means that the equation (10) does not vanish anymore. The torsion is given by a 3-form $`H_m^{ab}`$ which under $`G_2`$ decomposes into a $`\mathrm{𝟕}`$ of the antisymmetric indices $`[ab]`$ as well as for the vector index $`m`$. One gets in total four torsion classes related to the decomposition: $`\mathrm{𝟕}\mathrm{𝟕}=\mathrm{𝟏}+\mathrm{𝟕}+\mathrm{𝟏𝟒}+\mathrm{𝟐𝟕}`$. In string- and M-theory the presence of RR-fluxes yields typically non-trivial $`G`$-structures for the forms defined in (5), see , and we will comment more on it in the last section.

## 3 Solving the Killing spinor equation

Unbroken supersymmetry is equivalent to the existence of (at least) one Killing spinor $`\eta `$ yielding a vanishing gravitino variation of 11-dimensional supergravity

$$0=\delta \mathrm{\Psi }_M=\left[_M+\frac{1}{4}\widehat{\omega }_M^{RS}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{RS}+\frac{1}{144}\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }_M^{NPQR}8\delta _M^N\mathrm{\Gamma }^{PQR}\right)F_{NPQR}\right]\eta .$$
(13)
Later on, we will decompose the 11-d Killing spinor into a 4- and 7-spinor and because they parameterize supersymmetry transformations we also call them Killing spinors. With our ansatz from eq. (1) and the conventions introduced in the last section we write the gravitino variation covariantly in the metric $`h_{mn}`$ and obtain two equations

$`0=\delta \mathrm{\Psi }_\mu =_\mu \eta +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}e^{A+B}\left[\widehat{\gamma }_\mu \widehat{\gamma }^5\gamma ^m_mA+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{72}}e^{3B}\widehat{\gamma }_\mu F\right]\eta ,`$ (14)
$`0=\delta \mathrm{\Psi }_m=_m^{(h)}\eta +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[𝕀\gamma _m^n_nB+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{72}}e^{3B}\left(\widehat{\gamma }^5\gamma _mF12\widehat{\gamma }^5F_m\right)\right]\eta `$ (15)
where we introduced the abbreviations

$$FF_{mnpq}\gamma ^{mnpq},F_mF_{mnpq}\gamma ^{npq}.$$
(16)
and used

$$\gamma _m^{npqr}F_{npqr}=\gamma _mF4F_m.$$
(17)
This relation is a consequence of the general formula for products of $`\gamma `$-matrices

$$\gamma ^a\gamma _{b_1\mathrm{}b_n}=n\delta _{[b_1}^a\gamma _{b_2\mathrm{}b_n]}+\gamma _{b_1\mathrm{}b_n}^a.$$
(18)
We should put a warning at this point. To make the notation as simple as possible, we will not make a clear distinction between curved and flat indices. Of course the $`\gamma `$-matrix algebra and the spinor projection is defined in the tangent space, but the 4-form field as well as derivatives are always with respect to curved indices. Having this in mind we will avoid any underlined indices and hope that it is clear from the context.

We will start with equation (14), which yields as integrability condition

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill 0& =& \left[_mA^mA(𝕀𝕀)\frac{1}{9}e^{6B}(𝕀F^2)+\frac{1}{9}e^{3B}_mA(\widehat{\gamma }^5F^m)\right]\eta \hfill \\ & =& \left[𝕀\gamma ^{pq}_qA\frac{1}{12}e^{3B}\widehat{\gamma }^5F^p\right]\gamma _p\gamma _m\left[𝕀\gamma ^{mn}_nA+\frac{1}{12}e^{3B}\widehat{\gamma }^5F^m\right]\eta .\hfill \end{array}$$
(19)
This equation is solved if

$$\left[𝕀\gamma ^{mn}_nA+\frac{1}{12}e^{3B}\widehat{\gamma }^5F^m\right]\eta =0.$$
(20)
Multiplying this equation with $`\gamma ^m`$ and inserting it back into (14) yields $`_\mu \eta =0`$, which is consistent, since we are interested in a flat Minkowski vacuum. Following  we will use this equation to replace the terms containing the 4-form field in equation (15) and find

$$𝕀(_m^{(h)}\frac{1}{2}_mA)\eta \frac{1}{2}_n(A+B)(𝕀\gamma _m^n)\eta =0.$$
(21)
To solve this equation, we take now the freedom to choose the warp factor $`B`$ appropriately and rescale the spinor as

$$A=B,\eta =e^{\frac{A}{2}}\widehat{\eta }$$
(22)
yielding for $`\widehat{\eta }`$

$$\left(𝕀_m^{(h)}\right)\widehat{\eta }=0.$$
(23)
So we have two equations, (20) and (23), that have to be satisfied simultaneously. Note, in both equations $`\widehat{\eta }`$ is still a spinor of 11-d supergravity and we have now to decompose it into a 4-spinor $`ϵ`$ and a 7-spinor $`\theta `$. Note also, equation (23) does not mean that the 7-spinor is covariantly constant! Only if we choose $`\widehat{\eta }=ϵ\xi `$, which is often used in the literature, we could infer on a covariantly constant spinor $`\theta `$, but this choice seems to be consistent only for trivial fluxes and warp factors. For non-vanishing fluxes and non-trivial warping, equation (20) would yield for $`\widehat{\eta }=ϵ\xi `$ a Weyl constraint on $`ϵ`$ ($`\widehat{\gamma }^5ϵϵ`$), but the 4-spinor should be a Majorana since the 11- as well as the 7-spinor are both Majorana spinors. Therefore, we do not consider the direct product ansatz, but instead decompose $`\widehat{\eta }`$ in a more general way (see also )

$$\widehat{\eta }=\left[\underset{n}{}\frac{c_n}{n!}\mathrm{\Omega }_{a_1\mathrm{}a_n}\mathrm{\Gamma }^{a_1\mathrm{}a_n}\right]ϵ\theta \underset{n}{}c_n\mathrm{\Omega }^{(n)}ϵ\theta $$
(24)
where the constants $`c_n`$ will be fixed later. Of course the Killing spinor $`\widehat{\eta }`$ parameterize supersymmetry transformations and hence has to be globally well-defined. Assuming the same for the reduced 4- and 7-spinor implies that the differential forms $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{(n)}`$ have to be globally well-defined and assuming that we have at least one Killing spinor we can construct them as in (5). If they are covariantly constant, equation (23) becomes an equation for the 7-spinor $`_m^{(h)}\theta =0`$, which in turn ensures the covariantly constance of the forms $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. In this case the space described by the metric $`h_{mn}`$ has a holonomy group inside $`G_2`$. As we discussed in the previous section, the geometry of the space depends now on the number of spinors restricting more or less the holonomy. It equals $`G_2`$ if there is just one spinor fulfilling this equation, otherwise it is $`SU(3)`$, $`SU(2)`$ or trivial if there are two, four or eight spinors, resp. Recall, the reduction of the holonomy was related to the appearance of covariantly constant vectors yielding a factorization of the space into $`\times 𝕏_6`$, $`^3\times 𝕏_4`$ or $`^7`$. We are interested in the case with just one Killing spinor and hence there is no covariantly constant vector and the space does not factorize. Recall, the 7-d Majorana condition for a commuting spinor $`\theta `$ allowed only for a 0-, 3-, 4- and a 7-form, where the 4- and 7-form are the Hodge-dual of the 3- and 0-form. Using the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-matrices in (2) we write for $`\widehat{\eta }`$ as

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \widehat{\eta }& =& \left[c_0+c_3\mathrm{\Omega }^{(3)}+c_4\mathrm{\Omega }^{(4)}+c_7\mathrm{\Omega }^{(7)}\right]ϵ\theta \hfill \\ & =& \left[(c_0ic_7\widehat{\gamma }^5)𝕀+(c_3\widehat{\gamma }^5+ic_4)\frac{1}{3!}\phi _{mnp}\gamma ^{mnp}\right]ϵ\theta \hfill \end{array}$$
(25)
where $`\phi _{mnp}=i\theta \gamma _{mnp}\theta `$ as introduced in (5). Note, this expression is also true if the 7-spinor and hence the 3-form are not covariantly constant with respect $`_m^{(h)}`$, we only assumed the existence of exactly one Killing spinor $`\theta `$ on the 7-manifold. In fact inserting (24) into (23) one finds that $`_m^{(h)}\theta `$ is proportional to the covariant derivative of the differential forms. In order to explore the equations further one performs again the $`G_2`$ decomposition using the projectors $`_{\mathrm{𝟕}/\mathrm{𝟏𝟒}}`$ and finds the single Killing spinor as solution of equation (11). But equation (10), which was the projection of the spin connection onto the $`\mathrm{𝟕}`$, does not hold anymore and reflects exactly the appearance of non-trivial $`G`$-structures which are also related to covariantly non-constant differential forms. Using the projector constraint in (12) we find for (25)

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \widehat{\eta }& =& \left[(c_0ic_7\widehat{\gamma }^5)𝕀+i\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}7}(c_3\widehat{\gamma }^5+ic_4)𝕀\right]ϵ\theta \hfill \\ & =& \left[(c_07c_4)(𝕀𝕀)i(c_77c_3)(\widehat{\gamma }^5𝕀)\right]ϵ\theta .\hfill \end{array}$$
(26)
With this expression, we have finally to look for solutions of (20) without imposing any Weyl condition on the 4-spinor $`ϵ`$ and get two equations: one proportional to $`𝕀𝕀`$ and the other proportional to $`\widehat{\gamma }^5𝕀`$. The first one reads

$$(c_07c_4)\gamma _m^n_nA\theta =\frac{1}{12}i(c_77c_3)e^{3B}F_m\theta $$
(27)
and the other can be treated with the similar arguments which now follows. Contracting this equation with the Majorana spinor $`\theta `$ and due to the arguments after equation (5) we find a zero on the lhs and the rhs yields

$$(c_77c_3)F_{mnpq}\phi ^{npq}=0.$$
(28)
On the other hand, if one multiplies (27) first with $`\gamma ^l`$ followed by the contraction with $`\theta `$ gives after using the relation (18)

$$(c_07c_4)\phi ^{lmn}_nA=\frac{1}{12}i(c_77c_3)e^{3B}F_{mpqr}\psi ^{pqrl}$$

which becomes after contraction with $`\phi _{klm}`$ (see eq. (9))

$$(c_07c_4)_nA(c_77c_3)F_{npqr}\phi ^{pqr}.$$
(29)
Thus, this equation can be solved only if $`c_07c_4=0`$ by supposing non-trivial fluxes and warp factor. The second equation which is proportional to $`\widehat{\gamma }^5𝕀`$ leads to the condition $`c_77c_3=0`$. These conditions however mean that the spinor $`\widehat{\eta }`$ in (26) is trivial. On the other hand if $`_nA=0`$ it follows that $`F_{mnpq}\phi ^{npq}=F_{mnpq}\psi ^{npqr}=0`$. Next one decomposes the 4-form as 35 = 1+7+27 and finds that all components have to vanish identically. That for constant warp factor the fluxes have to be trivial has been found also by other authors, see e.g. .

Thus, we come to the conclusion that it is not possible to turn on 4-form fluxes while allowing for only one 7-spinor $`\theta `$.

## 4 Discussion

In this paper we were interested in warp compactifications of M-theory on a 7-manifold that yields a flat 4-d Minkowski space and preserve four supercharges. In the absence of 4-form fluxes this reduces the holonomy of the 7-manifold to $`G_2`$ and if there are more unbroken supercharges the holonomy group is further reduced. An obvious question is: Starting from a given $`G_2`$ manifold, can one turn on 4-form fluxes without changing the topology of the 7-manifold? Our calculation showed that this is not possible. In fact, the obstruction for 4-form fluxes was related to strong constraints coming from the fact that the 7-manifolds allows for only one Killing spinor $`\theta `$ yielding only 3- and 4-forms that are globally well-defined. Concretely, we considered a general decomposition of the 11-d spinor into a 4-spinor $`ϵ`$ and 7-spinor $`\theta `$. We assumed only one 7-spinor and showed that the 11-d Killing spinor equations can be solved only for a trivial spinor (broken supersymmetry) or trivial 4-form fluxes. This conclusion was reached under the further assumption that the 4-d external space is flat, but it is known that 4-form fluxes can be turned on if the 4-d space is anti de Sitter  and therefore our result can also be interpreted that a non-trivial 4-form flux on a $`G_2`$-manifold will always curve the external space or breaks supersymmetry.

As next question one may ask: What happens if there are more 7-spinors, which cannot be $`G_2`$ singlets, but are singlets under the decomposition under $`SU(3)`$ or under $`SU(2)`$? With already two spinors $`\theta ^l`$ one can build a Killing vector $`Vi(\theta ^1\gamma _m\theta ^2)`$ and incorporating this vector into the ansatz (24) allows in fact for consistent solutions of the equations, which can be seen by repeating the calculations. But note, the existence of a Killing vector means that the 7-manifold is effectively reduced to a 6-manifold and it is known from 10-d string theory that there are warp compactifications to flat 4-d Minkowski space if one takes into account non-trivial $`SU(3)`$ structures . In fact, following the procedure done in  it is straightforward to the see the appearance of torsion terms coming from the contraction of the 4-form with Killing vector, which in fact gives exactly the NS-3-form in string theory. E.g. having two Killing spinors one obtains in addition to one Killing vector also one 2-form, which is however not exact, but: $`_{[p}\mathrm{\Omega }_{mn]}=F_{mnpq}V^q`$ ; similar expression exist also for the other forms. Let us also mention, that we would not see it as a $`G_2`$ compactifications, since if one turns off the fluxes the 7-manifold will have at most $`SU(3)`$ holonomy, i.e. the geometry is given by $`𝕐_3`$. But let us stress, this case does not mean that the solution has more supersymmetry in general! In the absence of fluxes one will of course have eight unbroken supercharges, which correspond to an $`𝒩`$=2, $`D`$=4 vacuum, but the presence of fluxes may result into an additional constraint on the two 4-spinors yielding an $`𝒩`$=1 vacuum. E.g. the solutions discussed in  have exactly four unbroken supercharges and corresponds to a M-theory warp compactification with non-trivial 4-form fluxes. It would be interesting to work out in detail the relation of M-theory compactification with fluxes and possible $`SU(3)`$ structures, see also .

We conclude, in M-theory (warp) compactifications to flat 4-dimensional Minkowski space, 4-form fluxes can be turned on only, if the 7-manifolds support at least two Killing spinors $`\theta ^l`$ yielding to a reduction to a 6-manifold with non-trivial $`SU(3)`$ structures.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Herman Nicolai, Mirjam Cvetič, Christoph Sieg and Stefano Chiantese for discussions. The work of K.B. is supported by a Heisenberg grant of the DFG. The work of C.J. is supported by a Graduiertenkolleg grant of the DFG (The Standard Model of Particle Physics - structure, precision tests and extensions).