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# NEUTRINO OSCILLATIONS WITH FOUR GENERATIONS

## 1 Introduction

There have been several experiments $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$ $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$ which suggest neutrino oscillations. To explain the solar, atmospheric and LSND data within the framework of neutrino oscillations, it is necessary to have at least four kinds of neutrinos. It has been shown in the two flavor framework that the solar neutrino deficit can be explained by neutrino oscillation with the sets of parameters $`(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{}^2,\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{})`$ $`(𝒪(10^5\mathrm{eV}^2),𝒪(10^2))`$ (SMA (small mixing angle) MSW solution), $`(𝒪(10^5\mathrm{eV}^2),𝒪(1))`$ (LMA (large mixing angle) MSW solution), $`(𝒪(10^7\mathrm{eV}^2),𝒪(1))`$ (LOW solution) or $`(𝒪(10^{10}\mathrm{eV}^2),𝒪(1))`$ (VO (vacuum oscillation) solution). At the Neutrino 2000 Conference the Superkamiokande group has updated their data of the solar neutrinos and they reported that the LMA MSW solution gives the best fit to the data $`^\mathrm{?}`$. At the same time they also showed that the scenario of pure sterile neutrino oscillations $`\nu _e\nu _s`$ is excluded at 95%CL. It has been known that the atmospheric neutrino anomaly can be accounted for by dominant $`\nu _\mu \nu _\tau `$ oscillations with almost maximal mixing $`(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{atm}}^2,\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\text{atm}})(10^{2.5}\mathrm{eV}^2,1.0)`$. Again the Superkamiokande group has announced $`^\mathrm{?}`$ that the possibility of pure sterile neutrino oscillations $`\nu _\mu \nu _s`$ is excluded at 99%CL. On the other hand, combining the final result of LSND and the negative results by E776 $`^\mathrm{?}`$ ($`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$), Karmen2 $`^\mathrm{?}`$ ($`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$) and Bugey $`^\mathrm{?}`$ ($`\overline{\nu }_e\overline{\nu }_e`$), the oscillation parameter satisfies 0.1 eV$`{}_{}{}^{2}<\mathrm{\Delta }m^2<8`$ eV2 and $`8\times 10^4<\mathrm{sin}^22\theta <0.04`$ at 99%CL. In this talk I will review the present status of four neutrino scenarios in the light of the recent Superkamiokande data of the solar and atmospheric neutrinos.

## 2 Mass patterns

In the case of four neutrino schemes there are two distinct types of mass patterns. One is the so-called (2+2)-scheme (Fig. 1(a)) and the other is the (3+1)-scheme (Fig. 1(b) or (c)). Depending on the type of the two schemes, phenomenology is different.

### 2.1 (3+1)-scheme

It has been shown in Refs. $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$ using older data of LSND $`^\mathrm{?}`$ that the (3+1)-scheme is inconsistent with the Bugey reactor data$`^\mathrm{?}`$ and the CDHSW disappearance experiment$`^\mathrm{?}`$ of $`\nu _\mu `$. Let me briefly give this argument in Refs. $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$. Without loss of generality I assume that one distinct mass eigenstate is $`\nu _4`$ (See Fig. 1(b) or (c)) and the largest mass squared difference is $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{43}^2\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2`$.

In the case of (3+1)-scheme the constraints from the Bugey and CDHSW data are given by

$`1P(\overline{\nu }_e\overline{\nu }_e)`$ $`=`$ $`4|U_{e4}|^2(1|U_{e4}|^2)\mathrm{\Delta }_{43}\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\text{Bugey}}(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{43}^2)\mathrm{\Delta }_{43},`$
$`1P(\nu _\mu \nu _\mu )`$ $`=`$ $`4|U_{\mu 4}|^2(1|U_{\mu 4}|^2)\mathrm{\Delta }_{43}\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\text{CDHSW}}(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{43}^2)\mathrm{\Delta }_{43},`$
respectively, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{43}\mathrm{sin}^2\left(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{43}^2L/4E\right)`$, $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\text{Bugey}}`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\text{CDHSW}}`$ stand for the values of the boundary of the excluded region in the two flavor analysis as functions of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ (See Fig. 2). To explain the solar neutrino deficit and the zenith angle dependence of the atmospheric neutrino data it is necessary to have $`|U_{e4}|^2<1/2`$ and $`|U_{\mu 4}|^2<1/2`$ and therefore I get

$`|U_{e4}|^2`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[1\sqrt{1\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\text{Bugey}}(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{43}^2)}\right]`$
$`|U_{\mu 4}|^2`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[1\sqrt{1\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\text{CDHSW}}(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{43}^2)}\right].`$ (1)
On the other hand, the appearance probability $`P(\overline{\nu }_\mu \overline{\nu }_e)`$ of LSND in our scenario is given by

$`P(\overline{\nu }_\mu \overline{\nu }_e)`$ $`=`$ $`4|U_{e4}|^2|U_{\mu 4}|^2\mathrm{\Delta }_{43}\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\text{LSND}}(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{43}^2)\mathrm{\Delta }_{43},`$ (2)
where $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\text{LSND}}(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{43}^2)`$ stands for the value of $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta `$ in the LSND allowed region in the two flavor framework. From (1) and (2) I obtain

$`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\text{LSND}}(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{43}^2)`$ $``$ $`\left[1\sqrt{1\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\text{Bugey}}(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{43}^2)}\right]`$ (3)
$`\times `$ $`\left[1\sqrt{1\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\text{CDHSW}}(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{43}^2)}\right].`$
The value of the right hand side of (3) is plotted in Fig. 2 together with the allowed region of LSND $`^\mathrm{?}`$. At 90%CL the allowed region of LSND does not satisfy the condition (3) for the (3+1)-scheme, and actually it used to be the case with older data of LSND $`^\mathrm{?}`$ even at 99%CL $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$. However, in the final result the allowed region has shifted to the lower value of $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta `$ and it was shown $`^\mathrm{?}`$ that there are four isolated regions $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2`$0.3, 0.9, 1.7, 6.0 eV2 which satisfy the condition (3).

### 2.2 (2+2)-scheme

In the case of the (2+2)-scheme, assuming the mass pattern in Fig. 1 (a) with $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2=\mathrm{\Delta }m_{}^2`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2=\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{atm}}^2`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{43}^2=\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2`$, the constraints from the LSND, Bugey and CDHSW data are given by

$`P(\overline{\nu }_\mu \overline{\nu }_e)`$ $`=`$ $`4|U_{e3}U_{\mu 3}^{}+U_{e4}U_{\mu 4}^{}|^2\mathrm{\Delta }_{32}\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\text{LSND}}(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2)\mathrm{\Delta }_{32},`$
$`1P(\overline{\nu }_e\overline{\nu }_e)`$ $`=`$ $`4(|U_{e3}|^2+|U_{e4}|^2)(1|U_{e3}|^2|U_{e4}|^2)\mathrm{\Delta }_{32}`$
$``$ $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\text{Bugey}}(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2)\mathrm{\Delta }_{32},`$
$`1P(\nu _\mu \nu _\mu )`$ $`=`$ $`4(|U_{\mu 3}|^2+|U_{\mu 4}|^2)(1|U_{\mu 3}|^2|U_{\mu 4}|^2)\mathrm{\Delta }_{32}`$ (4)
$``$ $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\text{CDHSW}}(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2)\mathrm{\Delta }_{32},`$
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{32}\mathrm{sin}^2\left(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2L/4E\right)`$.

It has been shown $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$ that these conditions are consistent with all the constraints from the accelerator, reactor data as well as solar and atmospheric neutrino observations. As I will show, to account for both the solar neutrino deficit and the atmospheric neutrino anomaly, it is necessary to have

$`4(|U_{\mu 3}|^2+|U_{\mu 4}|^2)(1|U_{\mu 3}|^2|U_{\mu 4}|^2)𝒪(1),`$ (5)
so I take $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2`$ as small as possible, i.e., $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2=0.3`$ eV2 so that (5) be consistent with the CDHSW constraint (4).

## 3 (2+2)-scheme

### 3.1 Analysis of the solar neutrino data

The solar neutrino data were analyzed in the framework of the (2+2)-scheme by Ref. $`^\mathrm{?}`$ on the assumption that $`U_{e3}=U_{e4}=0`$, which is justified from the Bugey constraint $`|U_{e3}|^2+|U_{e4}|^21`$, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{atm}}^2`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2\mathrm{}`$ which is also justified since $`|\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{atm}}^2/2E|`$, $`|\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2/2E|\sqrt{2}G_FN_e`$ for the solar neutrino problem, where $`G_F`$ and $`N_e`$ stand for the Fermi constant and the electron density in the Sun. The conclusion of Ref. $`^\mathrm{?}`$is that the SMA MSW solution exists for $`0c_s<0.8`$, while the LMA MSW and LOW solutions survive only for $`0c_s<0.4`$ and $`0c_s<0.2`$, respectively, where $`c_s|U_{s1}|^2+|U_{s2}|^2`$.

### 3.2 Analysis of the atmospheric neutrino data

The atmospheric neutrino data were analyzed by Refs. $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$ with the (2+2)-scheme. Refs. $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$ assumed $`U_{e3}=U_{e4}=0`$ as in Ref. $`^\mathrm{?}`$, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{}^2=0`$ was also assumed. Ref. $`^\mathrm{?}`$ assumed $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2=0.3`$ eV2 so that the result with large $`|U_{\mu 3}|^2+|U_{\mu 4}|^2`$ do not contradict with the CDHSW constraint (4). Ref. $`^\mathrm{?}`$ did not take into account the contribution from $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2`$ to the oscillation probability and their result is a subset of Ref. $`^\mathrm{?}`$.

Here I adopt the notation in Ref. $`^\mathrm{?}`$ for the $`4\times 4`$ MNS matrix:

$`U_{MNS}`$ $``$ $`R_{34}({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}}\theta _{34})R_{24}(\theta _{24})R_{23}({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}})U_{23}(\theta _{23},\delta _1)U_{14}(\theta _{14},\delta _3)U_{13}(\theta _{13},\delta _2)R_{12}(\theta _{12})`$
where $`U_{23}(\theta _{23},\delta _1)e^{2i\delta _1\lambda _3}R_{23}(\theta _{23})e^{2i\delta _1\lambda _3}`$, $`U_{14}(\theta _{14},\delta _3)e^{\sqrt{6}i\delta _3\lambda _{15}/2}R_{14}(\theta _{14})`$ $`e^{\sqrt{6}i\delta _3\lambda _{15}/2}`$, $`U_{13}(\theta _{13},\delta _2)e^{2i\delta _2\lambda _8/\sqrt{3}}R_{13}(\theta _{13})e^{2i\delta _2\lambda _8/\sqrt{3}}`$, $`R_{jk}(\theta )\mathrm{exp}\left(iT_{jk}\theta \right),`$ $`\left(T_{jk}\right)_\mathrm{}m=i\left(\delta _j\mathrm{}\delta _{km}\delta _{jm}\delta _k\mathrm{}\right)`$, $`2\lambda _3\mathrm{diag}(1,1,0,0)`$, $`2\sqrt{3}\lambda _8\mathrm{diag}(1,1,2,0)`$, $`2\sqrt{6}\lambda _{15}\mathrm{diag}(1,1,1,3)`$ are $`4\times 4`$ matrices ($`\lambda _j`$ are elements of the $`su(4)`$ generators). With the assumptions $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2=0`$, $`|U_{e4}|^2=s_{14}^2=0`$, $`|U_{e3}|^2=c_{14}^2s_{13}^2=0`$, $`\theta _{12}`$, $`\theta _{13}`$ and $`\theta _{14}`$ disappear from $`U`$ and $`\nu _e`$ decouples from other three neutrinos. Thus the problem is reduced to the three flavor neutrino analysis among $`\nu _\mu `$, $`\nu _\tau `$, $`\nu _s`$ and the reduced MNS matrix is

$`\stackrel{~}{U}`$ $``$ $`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}U_{\mu 2}& U_{\mu 3}& U_{\mu 4}\\ U_{\tau 2}& U_{\tau 3}& U_{\tau 4}\\ U_{s2}& U_{s3}& U_{s4}\end{array}\right)=e^{i(\frac{\pi }{2}\theta _{34})\lambda _7}D^1e^{i\theta _{24}\lambda _5}De^{i(\theta _{23}\frac{\pi }{2})\lambda _2},`$ (10)
with $`D\mathrm{diag}(e^{i\delta _1/2},1,e^{i\delta _1/2})`$ ($`\lambda _j`$ are the $`3\times 3`$ Gell-Mann matrices) is the reduced $`3\times 3`$ MNS matrix. This MNS matrix $`\stackrel{~}{U}`$ is obtained by substitution $`\theta _{12}\theta _{23}\pi /2`$, $`\theta _{13}\theta _{24}`$, $`\theta _{12}\pi /2\theta _{34}`$, $`\delta \delta _1`$ in the standard parametrization in Ref. $`^\mathrm{?}`$. It turns out that $`\theta _{34}`$ corresponds to the mixing of $`\nu _\mu \nu _\tau `$ and $`\nu _\mu \nu _s`$, while $`\theta _{23}`$ is the mixing of the contribution of $`\mathrm{sin}^2\left(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{atm}}^2L/4E\right)`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}^2\left(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2L/4E\right)`$ in the oscillation probability. The allowed region at 90%CL of the atmospheric neutrino data is given by the area bounded by thin solid lines in Fig. 3 for $`\delta _1=\pi /2`$. The allowed regions for $`\delta _1=0,\pi /4`$ are given in Ref. $`^\mathrm{?}`$.

### 3.3 Combined analysis of the solar and atmospheric neutrino data

In Fig. 3, the lines given by $`c_s|U_{s1}|^2+|U_{s2}|^2=|c_{23}c_{34}+s_{23}s_{34}s_{24}e^{i\delta _1}|^2=0.2,0.4,0.8`$ are depicted together with the allowed region of the atmospheric neutrino data. By combining the analyses of Ref. $`^\mathrm{?}`$ and Ref. $`^\mathrm{?}`$, I obtain the region which satisfies the constraints of the solar and atmospheric neutrino data. The darkest, medium and lightest shadowed areas stand for $`\nu _{\text{atm}}+\nu _{}`$(SMA, LMA or LOW), $`\nu _{\text{atm}}+\nu _{}`$(SMA or LMA), $`\nu _{\text{atm}}+\nu _{}`$(SMA), respectively. Although this result is not quantitative, it gives us a sense on how likely the (2+2)-scheme is allowed by combining the solar and atmospheric neutrino data. Let me emphasize that non-zero contribution of $`\mathrm{sin}^2\left(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2L/4E\right)`$ (i.e., the case of $`\theta _{23}>0`$) to the oscillation probability is important particularly for the LMA and LOW solar solutions. The region of $`\theta _{23}>0`$ has not been analyzed by Ref. $`^\mathrm{?}`$. Let me also stress that both the solar neutrinos and the atmospheric neutrinos are accounted for by hybrid of active and sterile oscillations in the (2+2)-scheme.

## 4 (3+1)-scheme

After the work of Barger et al. $`^\mathrm{?}`$, people $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$ have investigated various consequences of the (3+1)-scheme. Here let me make two comments on the (3+1)-scheme.

### 4.1 Atmospheric neutrinos

As in the case of the (2+2)-scheme, I assume $`U_{e3}=U_{e4}=\mathrm{\Delta }m_{}^2=0`$ for simplicity. Then $`\nu _e`$ once again decouples from $`\nu _e`$, $`\nu _\mu `$, $`\nu _\tau `$ and the probability in vacuum for the atmospheric neutrino scale is given by

$`P(\nu _\mu \nu _\mu )`$ $`=`$ $`4|U_{\mu 3}|^2(1|U_{\mu 3}|^2|U_{\mu 4}|^2)\mathrm{\Delta }_{32}+2|U_{\mu 4}|^2(1|U_{\mu 4}|^2),`$
$`P(\nu _\mu \nu _\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`4\mathrm{}\left[U_{\mu 3}U_{\tau 3}^{}(U_{\mu 3}^{}U_{\tau 3}+U_{\mu 4}^{}U_{\tau 4})\right]\mathrm{\Delta }_{32}+2|U_{\mu 4}|^2|U_{\tau 4}|^2,`$
$`P(\nu _\mu \nu _s)`$ $`=`$ $`4\mathrm{}\left[U_{\mu 3}U_{s3}^{}(U_{\mu 3}^{}U_{s3}+U_{\mu 4}^{}U_{s4})\right]\mathrm{\Delta }_{32}+2|U_{\mu 4}|^2|U_{s4}|^2,`$
where I have taken $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{atm}}^2`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{43}^2\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2`$ and I have averaged over rapid oscillations: $`\mathrm{sin}^2\left(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2L/4E\right)1/2`$. Since the (3+1)-scheme is allowed only for four discrete values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2`$, let me discuss $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2`$=0.3 eV2 ($`|U_{\mu 4}|^2>0.34`$) and $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2`$=0.9 eV2 ($`|U_{\mu 4}|^20.03`$), 1.7 eV2 ($`|U_{\mu 4}|^20.01`$), 6.0 eV2 ($`|U_{\mu 4}|^20.02`$), separately. For simplicity I assume $`\delta _1`$=0 since the existence of the CP phase $`\delta _1`$ does not change the situation very much.

#### 4.1.1 $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2`$=0.3 eV2

Since we know from the Superkamiokande atmospheric neutrino data that the coefficient of $`\mathrm{sin}^2\left(\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{atm}}^2L/4E\right)`$ in $`P(\nu _\mu \nu _\mu )`$ has to be large to have a good fit, I optimize $`4|U_{\mu 3}|^2(1|U_{\mu 3}|^2|U_{\mu 4}|^2)`$ with respect to $`\theta _{23}`$ for $`|U_{\mu 4}|^2=0.34`$. When $`U_{e4}=0`$ I have $`|U_{\mu 3}|^2=c_{23}^2c_{24}^2`$, $`|U_{\mu 4}|^2=s_{24}^2`$, $`|U_{\tau 4}|^2=c_{24}^2c_{34}^2`$, $`|U_{s4}|^2=c_{24}^2s_{34}^2`$ in the notation of Ref. $`^\mathrm{?}`$, and it is easy to see

$`4|U_{\mu 3}|^2(1|U_{\mu 3}|^2|U_{\mu 4}|^2)=c_{24}^4\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{23}c_{24}^4=0.44,`$
where equality holds when $`\theta _{23}=\pi /4`$. This is the value of $`\theta _{23}`$ for which the fit of the (3+1)-scheme to the atmospheric neutrino data is supposed to be the best for $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2`$=0.3 eV2. When $`\theta _{23}=\pi /4`$ the probability in vacuum becomes

$`P(\nu _\mu \nu _\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`\left(c_{24}^2s_{34}^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{24}c_{34}^2\right)\mathrm{\Delta }_{32}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}c_{34}^2\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{24}`$
$`P(\nu _\mu \nu _s)`$ $`=`$ $`\left(c_{24}^2c_{34}^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{24}s_{34}^2\right)\mathrm{\Delta }_{32}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}s_{34}^2\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{24}.`$
From (LABEL:eqn:pmutau) $`\theta _{34}`$ turns out to be the mixing of $`\nu _\mu \nu _\tau `$ and $`\nu _\mu \nu _s`$ as in the (2+2)-scheme.

I found from the explicit numerical calculation $`^\mathrm{?}`$ that the fit of the (3+1)-scheme with $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2`$=0.3 eV2, $`|U_{\mu 4}|^2=0.34`$, $`\theta _{23}=\pi /4`$ to the atmospheric neutrino data is very bad for any value of $`\theta _{34}`$ and the region of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2`$=0.3 eV2 is excluded at 6.9$`\sigma `$CL.

#### 4.1.2 $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2`$ =0.9, 1.7, 6.0 eV2

In this case $`|U_{\mu 4}|^2<0.03`$ and I can put $`U_{\mu 4}=0`$ as a good approximation. Then the constant part in the oscillation probability disappears and this case is reduced to the analysis in the (2+2)-scheme with $`\theta _{23}=0`$. The allowed region at 90%CL is given roughly by $`\pi /4<\theta _{34}<\pi /4`$, $`0.8<\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{24}1`$, where $`\theta _{34}`$ and $`\theta _{24}`$ stand for the mixing of $`\nu _\mu \nu _\tau `$ and $`\nu _\mu \nu _s`$ and the mixing of atmospheric neutrino oscillations, respectively.

### 4.2 Oscillations of high energy neutrinos in matter

When $`|U_{e4}|^2`$, $`|U_{\mu 4}|^2`$ and $`|U_{\tau 4}|^2`$ are all small, it is naively difficult to distinguish the (3+1)-scheme from the ordinary three flavor scenario. However, because of the existence of the small mixing angles in $`U_{e4}`$, $`U_{\mu 4}`$ and the large mass squared difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2`$ the oscillation probability in matter can have enhancement which never happens in the three flavor case. By taking $`\theta _{12}=\pi /4`$, $`\theta _{13}=0`$, $`\theta _{23}=\pi /4`$, $`\theta _{14}=ϵ`$ ($`|ϵ|1`$), $`\theta _{24}=\delta `$ ($`|\delta |1`$), $`\theta _{34}=\pi /2`$ in (LABEL:eqn:mns) I get

$`U\left(\begin{array}{cccc}\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}& 0& ϵ\\ \frac{1}{2}& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}& \delta \\ \frac{1}{2}& \frac{1}{2}& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}& 0\\ \frac{ϵ}{\sqrt{2}}\frac{\delta }{2}& \frac{ϵ}{\sqrt{2}}+\frac{\delta }{2}& 0& 1\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\nu _1\\ \nu _2\\ \nu _3\\ \nu _4\end{array}\right)`$ (21)
which is the same as the MNS matrix in Ref. $`^\mathrm{?}`$ up to the phase of each factor. The probability $`P(\nu _\mu \nu _\mu )`$ turns out to receive significant deviation from the vacuum one due to the matter effect for $`E_\nu 𝒪(1)`$ TeV, and the behaviors of $`1P(\nu _\mu \nu _\mu )`$ are shown in Fig. 4, where three cases of $`|\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\text{LSND}}^2|`$=0.9 eV2 ($`8.8^{}ϵ12.2^{}`$, $`6.4^{}\delta 8.9^{}`$), 1.7 eV2 ($`7.5^{}ϵ10.2^{}`$, $`5.6^{}\delta 7.7^{}`$), 6.0 eV2 ($`7.5^{}ϵ7.7^{}`$, $`10.0^{}\delta 10.2^{}`$) are considered.aaa The eigenvalues of the mass matrix in this case turn out to be roots of a cubic equation and analytic treatment of the oscillation probability is difficult, unlike the cases of three flavors $`^\mathrm{?}`$ or four flavors $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$, where one mass scale is dominant and the eigenvalues are roots of a quadratic equation. The appearance channel which is enhanced is dominantly $`\nu _\mu \nu _s`$, so it may be difficult to detect signs of this enhancement from observations of high energy cosmic neutrinos of energy $`E_\nu 𝒪(1)`$ TeV, although this enhancement may be observed through neutral current interactions in the future.bbbSimilar enhancement has been discussed in a different context by Ref. $`^\mathrm{?}`$. I thank Athar Husain for bringing my attention to Ref. $`^\mathrm{?}`$.

## 5 Big Bang Nucleosynthesis

It has been shown $`^\mathrm{?}`$ in the two flavor framework that if sterile neutrino have oscillations with active ones and if $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2\mathrm{sin}^42\theta >3\times 10^3`$ eV2 is satisfied then sterile neutrinos would have been in thermal equilibrium and the number $`N_\nu `$ of light neutrinos in Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) would be 4. This argument was generalized to the four neutrino case $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$ and by imposing all the constraints from accelerators, reactors, solar neutrinos and atmospheric neutrinos as well as the BBN constraint $`N_\nu <4.0`$ it was concluded that the only consistent four neutrino scenario is the (2+2)-scheme with the MNS mixing matrix

$`U_{MNS}=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}U_{e1}& U_{e2}& U_{e3}& U_{e4}\\ U_{\mu 1}& U_{\mu 2}& U_{\mu 3}& U_{\mu 4}\\ U_{\tau 1}& U_{\tau 2}& U_{\tau 3}& U_{\tau 4}\\ U_{s1}& U_{s2}& U_{s3}& U_{s4}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{cccc}c_{}& s_{}& ϵ& ϵ\\ ϵ& ϵ& 1/\sqrt{2}& 1/\sqrt{2}\\ ϵ& ϵ& 1/\sqrt{2}& 1/\sqrt{2}\\ s_{}& c_{}& ϵ& ϵ\end{array}\right),`$ (30)
where $`c_{}\mathrm{cos}\theta _{}`$, $`s_{}\mathrm{sin}\theta _{}`$ and $`\theta _{}`$ stands for the mixing angle of the SMA MSW solar solution. In this case $`c_s|U_{s1}|^2+|U_{s2}|^21`$ and the solar neutrino deficit would be accounted for by sterile neutrino oscillations $`\nu _e\nu _s`$ with the SMA MSW solution while the atmospheric neutrino anomaly would be by $`\nu _\mu \nu _\tau `$ oscillations. This scenario is obviously inconsistent with the recent solar neutrino data by the Superkamiokande group, and the argument which has lead to (30) has to be given up.

Fortunately the upper bound on $`N_\nu `$ has become less stringent now and $`N_\nu =4.0`$ seems to be allowed. Furthermore, it has been shown recently $`^\mathrm{?}`$ that the combined analysis of BBN and the recent data by BOOMERanG $`^\mathrm{?}`$ and MAXIMA-1 $`^\mathrm{?}`$ of the Cosmic Microwave Background prefers higher value of $`N_\nu `$: $`4N_\nu 13`$. Therefore all the four neutrino schemes of type (2+2) and (3+1) seemed to be consistent with the BBN constraint.

On the other hand, it has been pointed out $`^\mathrm{?}`$ in the two flavor framework that for a certain range of the oscillation parameters neutrino oscillations themselves create asymmetry between $`\nu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }`$ and this asymmetry prevents $`\nu _s`$ from oscillating into active neutrinos. Although this analysis has not been generalized to the four neutrino cases, even if the upper bound of $`N_\nu `$ becomes less than 4.0 in the future, it might be still possible to have four neutrino schemes which are consistent with the BBN constraint as well as the solar and atmospheric neutrino data due to possible asymmetry in $`\nu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }`$.

## 6 Conclusions

In this talk I have shown that there are still four neutrino scenarios ((2+2)- as well as (3+1)- schemes) which are consistent with all the experiments and the observations, despite the recent claims by the Superkamiokande group that pure sterile oscillations $`\nu _e\nu _s`$ in the solar neutrinos and pure sterile oscillations $`\nu _\mu \nu _s`$ in the atmospheric neutrinos are disfavored. In particular, the reason that the (2+2)-scheme is consistent with the recent Superkamiokande data is because both solar and atmospheric neutrinos have hybrid oscillations of active and sterile oscillations.

## Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Yoshitaka Kuno for invitation and the local organizers for hospitality during the workshop. This research was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, #12047222, #10640280.

## References


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# Energy and phase relaxation in non-equilibrium diffusive nano-wires with two-level systems

## 0.1 Introduction

Two-level systems (TLS) have been known to exist in disordered solids for a long time. Their signatures have been observed in the anomalous thermodynamic properties of glasses, which may be explained by a flat distribution of level splittings. In metals, slow two-level fluctuators are evidenced by telegraph noise in the conductance . A new physical phenomenon, the two-channel Kondo (2CK) effect , arises when a fast, energetically (nearly) degenerate TLS is embedded in a metal, where the local impurity degree of freedom couples to the continuum of conduction electrons via an exchange interaction. The channel degree of freedom, conserved by this interaction, is the magnetic conduction electron spin, which is always degenerate in the presence of time reversal symmetry.

The 2CK effect exhibits striking non-Fermi liquid behavior  with a non-vanishing single-particle scattering rate at the Fermi energy $`\epsilon _F`$ for temperature $`T=0`$, logarithmic behavior of the linear specific heat coefficient and the susceptibility, and a non-analytic, universal correction to the electronic density of states, $`\mathrm{\Delta }N(E)/(B\sqrt{T})=h(x)`$, where $`B`$ is a non-universal constant, $`x:=|E\epsilon _F|/T`$ and $`h(x)`$ is a universal scaling function with $`h(x)=\sqrt{x}`$ for $`x1`$ . Signatures of the latter have been observed as zero bias conductance anomalies (ZBA) of nano point contacts . As suggested in Ref. , the finite single-particle scattering rate at the Fermi energy would provide a natural explanation for the saturation of the dephasing time $`\tau _\phi `$ at low temperatures, which has recently been observed  in magnetotransport measurements of weak localization in disordered wires.

However, the actual existence of the 2CK effect in nature has remained a controversial issue, partly because the ZBA could also be explained qualitatively , although not quantitatively , by the Al’tshuler-Aronov diffusion-enhanced Coulomb interaction , partly because the physical realization of degenerate TLS is poorly understood. Therefore, it is essential to develop unambiguous methods for detecting 2CK physics in mesoscopic systems.

Recently, it has been demonstrated in a landmark experiment performed by the Saclay “Quantronics” group  that unique information about the electronic interactions in a metal may be extracted from the distribution function $`f(E,U)`$ of quasiparticles with energy $`E`$ when the system is driven far away from equilibrium by a transport voltage $`U`$: The shape of $`f(E,U)`$ is determined by the energy dependence of relaxation processes which tend to equilibrate the system. It has been found that in diffusive Cu and Au nano-wires the distribution function obeys a scaling form, $`f(E,U)=f(E/eU)`$, implying a non-Fermi liquid interaction .

In this article we discuss the close relation between this peculiar scaling property, which we will call “$`E/eU`$ scaling” for brevity, and non-Fermi liquid behavior. It is then shown that the 2CK effect obeys $`E/eU`$ scaling and reproduces quantitatively the measured distribution functions, while any other type of interaction is ruled out. This provides the strongest case to date for the physical realization of the 2CK effect in Cu and Au nano-wires induced by TLS. We briefly discuss its relation  to the problem of the dephasing time saturation at low temperatures .

## 0.2 Experiment and non-Fermi liquid signature

The distribution function $`f(E,U)`$ was measured  in an experimental setup where a non-equilibrium current was driven through a Cu nano-wire contacted by two reservoirs at chemical potentials $`0`$ and $`eU`$, respectively (Fig. 0.1). In addition, a superconducting Al tunneling junction was attached at a position $`x`$ along the wire, the Al slab being in equilibrium with itself. For a voltage $`V`$ across the junction the tunneling current is given by

$$j_{tunnel}=\frac{e}{\mathrm{}}|t|^2\underset{\sigma }{}𝑑E\left[f(E)f^o(E+eV)\right]N_{Cu,\sigma }(E)N_{sc}(E+eV),$$
(0.1)
where $`t`$ is the (energy independent) tunneling matrix element, $`f^o(E)`$ is the Fermi distribution function in the superconductor, and $`N_{Cu}`$, $`N_{sc}`$ denote the density of states in the wire and in the superconductor, respectively. Since for the voltages used in the experiment $`N_{Cu}`$ is flat and the BCS density of states $`N_{sc}`$ is measured independently, the non-equilibrium distribution $`f(E)`$ in the Cu wire can be extracted from this expression. The electronic transport in the wire is diffusive with diffusion coefficient $`D`$. Length $`L`$ and thickness $`d`$ of the wire are such that the Fermi surface is three dimensional and the Coulomb and phonon scattering times are large compared to the electronic diffusion time $`\tau _D=L^2/D`$ through the wire, so that equilibration due to these processes can be neglected . In this situation, assuming purely elastic scattering, one expects the distribution function at a given position $`x`$ along the wire to be a linear superposition of the Fermi functions in the reservoirs,

$$f_x^{elast}(E,U)=\left(1\frac{x}{L}\right)f^o(E+eU)+\frac{x}{L}f^o(E),$$
(0.2)
since there is no energy exchange within the electron system or between the electron system and the lattice. Eq. (0.2) is a solution of the diffusive Boltzmann equation (0.6) , when the collision integral vanishes (see section 3). This situation is to be distinguished from the hot electron regime, where local equilibration occurs due to inelastic processes .

The measured distribution functions showed rounding of the Fermi steps as compared to Eq. (0.2) and obeyed scale invariance with respect to the transport voltage $`U`$, $`f(E,U)=f(E/eU)`$, when $`U`$ exceeded a certain low energy scale, $`eU\stackrel{>}{}0.1meV`$ . Deviations from scaling were observed again for voltages larger than a high energy scale $`E_o0.5meV`$. The latter may be explained by reservoir heating effects or by the electrons coupling to additional degrees of freedom at high energies. We now deduce the non-Fermi liquid signature from the scaling property. The latter implies that the equation of motion for $`f(E)`$, the Boltzmann equation and, as a consequence, the inelastic single-particle collision rate $`1/\tau (E)`$ are scale invariant. Assuming a (yet to be determined) two-particle potential $`\stackrel{~}{V}(\epsilon )`$ with energy transfer $`\epsilon `$, $`1/\tau `$ is given in 2nd order perturbation theory as

$$\frac{1}{\tau (E)}\frac{1}{\tau (E/eU)}N_{Cu}(0)^3𝑑\epsilon 𝑑\epsilon ^{}|\stackrel{~}{V}(\epsilon )|^2\stackrel{~}{F}(\frac{E}{eU},\frac{\epsilon }{eU},\frac{\epsilon ^{}}{eU}).$$
(0.3)
Here $`\stackrel{~}{F}`$ is a combination of distribution functions $`f`$ guaranteeing that there is only scattering from an occupied into an unoccupied state. Therefore, the experimental results about the scaling property of $`f`$ imply that $`\stackrel{~}{F}`$ depends only on the dimensionless energies as displayed in Eq. (0.3). Demanding scale invariance for $`1/\tau `$ with respect to $`eU`$, i.e. making the frequency integrals dimensionless, implies a characteristic energy dependence of the interaction and the single particle scattering rate, $`\stackrel{~}{V}(\epsilon )1/\epsilon `$  and $`1/\tau (E)\mathrm{ln}(E/E_o)`$, for energies less than $`E_o`$. These infrared singularities indicate a breakdown of Fermi liquid theory within the 2nd order perturbation theory argument applied here.

## 0.3 Two-channel Kondo effect and scaling in non-equilibrium

The strong infrared divergence of the two-particle potential, $`\stackrel{~}{V}(\epsilon )1/\epsilon `$, deduced above, is not explained by any conventional interaction, including the Al’tshuler-Aronov interaction . It must, therefore, be generated by an infinite resummation of logarithmic terms obtained in perturbation theory due to the presence of a Fermi edge. In this section the 2CK effect is briefly reviewed. We then show that the effective electron-electron vertex, mediated by a 2CK impurity, has a $`1/\epsilon `$ divergence and calculate the resulting distribution functions away from equilibrium.

The 2CK effect arises whenever a local, energetically degenerate two-level degree of freedom (pseudospin $`\tau =\pm 1/2`$) is coupled to a system of two identical conduction electron bands or channels via a pseudospin exchange interaction, which, however, conserves the channel degree of freedom. As for the physical realization of the pseudospin, it has been suggested  that it might arise from the degenerate positions of an atom in a symmetrical double well potential, from a rotational degree of freedom of a lattice defect or group of atoms, or from sliding kinks on screw dislocations in a lattice . The channel degree of freedom is then the magnetic electron spin $`\sigma =\pm 1/2`$, which is necessarily degenerate because of time reversal symmetry (Kramers degeneracy).

In order to describe non-equilibrium situations, it is useful to represent this system in terms of the low-energy physics of a SU(2)pseudospin$`\times `$SU(2)channel Anderson impurity model in the Kondo limit, i.e. in terms of a doubly degenerate local level $`E_d<0`$, coupled via a hybridization $`v`$ to two identical conduction channels, with conduction electron operators $`c_{k\tau \sigma }^{}`$, $`c_{k\tau \sigma }^{}`$. The dynamics of the two-level degree of freedom (pseudospin) is described by a fermionic field operator $`d_{\tau \sigma }^{}`$, with the restriction

that the local level must not be doubly occupied at any time. The latter is implemented exactly by decomposing the local operator into auxiliary fermion $`f_\tau ^{}`$ and boson $`b_{\overline{\sigma }}^{}`$ operators, $`d_{\tau \sigma }^{}=f_\tau ^{}b_{\overline{\sigma }}^{}`$, supplemented by the operator constraint $`\widehat{Q}=_\tau f_\tau ^{}f_\tau ^{}+_\sigma b_{\overline{\sigma }}^{}b_{\overline{\sigma }}^{}1`$ . Thus, we describe the 2CK system by the Anderson hamiltonian in auxiliary particle representation,

$$H=\underset{k\sigma \tau }{}\epsilon _kc_{k\tau \sigma }^{}c_{k\tau \sigma }^{}+E_d\underset{\tau }{}f_\tau ^{}f_\tau ^{}+v\underset{k\sigma \tau }{}(f_\tau ^{}b_{\overline{\sigma }}^{}c_{k\tau \sigma }^{}+h.c.).$$
(0.4)
Note that the boson field $`b_{\overline{\sigma }}`$ transforms with respect to the adjoint representation of SU(2)channel (denoted by the index $`\overline{\sigma }`$). By integrating out $`b_{\overline{\sigma }}^{}`$ in the Kondo regime ($`_\tau f_\tau ^{}f_\tau ^{}1`$, $`|E||E_d|`$), $`H`$ is reduced to a 2CK model where the exchange coupling $`J=|v|^2/|E_d|`$ is mediated by the boson propagator and, as required, conserves the channel degree of freedom $`\sigma `$. The above auxiliary particle representation is known to describe the infrared behavior of the 2CK effect correctly  already on the level of a leading-order selfconsistent perturbation theory in the hybridization $`v`$, the non-crossing approximation (NCA) . It also allows for the application of standard Green’s function methods and, in particular, is readily generalized  to non-equilibrium by means of the Keldysh technique.

Physically, the presence of two identical conduction electron channels leads to an overscreening of the impurity pseudospin below the Kondo temperature $`T_K=\left(2\mathrm{\Gamma }/\pi \right)\mathrm{exp}\left(\pi |E_d|/2\mathrm{\Gamma }\right)`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\pi |v|^2N_{Cu}(0)`$, as elucidated in Fig. 0.2. This results in a non-vanishing zero-point entropy $`S(T=0)=k_B\mathrm{ln}\sqrt{2}`$  and is closely related to the finite single-particle decay rate $`1/\tau (E=0,T=0)>0`$ predicted by the 2CK effect.

Below the Kondo scale $`T_K`$, the auxiliary particle propagators $`G_f`$, $`G_b`$ are known to exhibit infrared power-law behavior in equilibrium, $`G_f(\omega )\omega ^{\alpha _f}`$, $`G_b(\omega )\omega ^{\alpha _b}`$ for $`\omega \stackrel{<}{}T_K`$ , where the exact  relation $`\alpha _f+\alpha _b=1`$ is characteristic for the multichannel Kondo effect ($`\alpha _f=M/(M+N)`$, $`\alpha _b=N/(M+N)`$ for pseudospin degeneracy $`N`$ and channel number $`M`$). Using power counting arguments, it follows that each fermion (boson) propagator contributes a power $`\alpha _f`$ ($`\alpha _b`$) and each frequency integral contributes a power 1 to the frequency dependence of the effective electron-electron vertex $`\gamma (\omega )`$, shown in Fig. 0.3. Thus, the 2CK electron-electron

vertex depends on the frequency transfer $`\omega `$ as $`\gamma (\omega )\omega ^{12(\alpha _f+\alpha _b)}=\omega ^1`$ . On the perturbative level, this implies scale invariance of the inelastic scattering rate $`1/\tau (E)`$ with respect to the transport voltage $`U`$, as discussed in section 2. A self-consistent resummation of these terms in non-equilibrium shows that the scale invariance persists up to single-particle energies $`E`$ of the order of $`eU`$ . It may be shown that the range of eU values for which scaling behavior is obeyed is bounded from below by the Kondo temperature $`T_K`$. For large bias voltage, deviations from scaling occur when $`eU`$ becomes comparable to the band cutoff or to the local level $`|E_d|`$.

The remaining task is to calculate the non-equilibrium distribution function $`f_x(E,U)`$ at an arbitrary position $`x`$ along the wire (compare Fig. 0.1) in the presence of 2CK defects. In the regime where the inelastic mean free path $`\mathrm{}_{inel}`$, approximately given by the average spacing $`a`$ between 2CK impurities, is small

compared to the wire length, but large compared to the elastic mean free path $`\mathrm{}`$, $`L\mathrm{}_{inel}a\mathrm{}`$, the dynamics of a given 2CK impurity is determined by interactions with electrons probing many different spatial regions in the wire. It is, therefore, appropriate to first calculate the averaged quasiparticle distribution $`\overline{f_x(E,U)}`$ as the solution of the impurity ensemble averaged Boltzmann equation, subject to the boundary conditions $`\overline{f_{x=0}(E,U)}=f^o(E+eU)`$, $`\overline{f_{x=L}(E,U)}=f^o(E)`$. The equation of motion for $`\overline{f}`$ is obtained by summing over all local quasiparticle momenta $`p`$ and exploiting the fact that the current in the disordered system is diffusive,

$$\stackrel{}{j}_x(E)=\underset{p}{}\frac{p}{m}\overline{f_x(E,U)}=D_x\rho _x(E)=D_x\underset{p}{}\overline{f_x(E,U)}.$$
(0.5)
Here, $`_x`$ denotes the component of the gradient in the direction along the wire. In the stationary case, the resulting diffusive Boltzmann equation reads

$$_x^2\overline{f_x(E,U)}=\frac{1}{D}𝒞_{2CK}[\overline{f_x(E,U)},c_{imp}],$$
(0.6)
where $`𝒞_{2CK}`$ is the collision integral due to 2CK scattering. For small impurity concentration $`c_{imp}`$ is proportional to $`c_{imp}`$. Since the diffusion constant $`D`$ is measured experimentally, $`c_{imp}`$ is the only adjustable parameter of the theory in the scaling regime.

In the experiment, the tunneling current Eq. (0.1) measures the local (unaveraged) distribution function of electrons in the vicinity of the junction. It is determined by the local stationarity condition that it must be equal to the distribution function of the 2CK impurity states. The results are shown in Fig. 0.4 and display scaling behavior for $`eUT_K`$. It is seen that there is excellent quantitative agreement between theory and experiment for all samples. Considering the fact that no other interaction producing $`E/eU`$ scaling is known to date, this provides strong evidence for the presence of 2CK impurities in evaporated Cu nano-wires. From the fit of the theory to that experimental curve which for the first time shows deviations from scaling as the voltage is decreased, i.e. for $`eU=0.1meV`$ (Fig. 5), the corresponding experimental low energy scale may be identified with the low energy scale of the theory, the Kondo temperature $`T_K`$. Thus we have $`T_K1K`$, which is in rough agreement with earlier experimental results on TLS in Cu point contacts .

## 0.4 Relation to dephasing

In equilibrium, the non-vanishing 2CK quasiparticle scattering rate $`1/\tau (E)`$ cross-es over to a pure dephasing rate $`1/\tau _\phi `$, as the quasiparticle energy approaches the Fermi surface, $`E,T0`$, since at the Fermi energy no energy exchange is possible. One might, therefore, conjecture that degenerate TLS could be the origin of the dephasing time saturation observed in magnetotransport measurements of weak localization. This assumption is indeed supported by several coincidences between the dephasing time measurements and the results on the non-equilibrium distribution function: (1) The dephasing time $`\tau _\phi `$ extracted from magnetotransport experiments  is strongly material, sample, and preparation dependent. This suggests a non-universal dephasing mechanism, like TLS, which is not inherent to the electron gas. (2) The dephasing time in Au wires is generically shorter than in Cu wires . This is consistent with the fact that the estimates for the TLS concentration $`c_{imp}`$, obtained from the fit of the present theory to the experimental distribution functions, is much higher in Au than in Cu wires . (3) In Ag wires one observes neither dephasing saturation nor $`E/eU`$ scaling of the distribution function. This is consistent with the assumption that there are no 2CK defects present in the Ag samples .

## 0.5 Concluding remarks

We have calculated the quasiparticle distribution as a function of the excitation energy $`E`$ in diffusive nano-wires in the presence of 2CK impurities, when the system is driven far away from equilibrium by a finite transport voltage $`U`$. The present theory reproduces the experimental finding that in Cu and Au wires the nonequilibrium distribution function displays the scaling property $`f(E,U)=f(E/eU)`$ for $`eU`$ above a low-energy scale $`T_o`$. Within the theory, $`T_o`$ is given by the Kondo temperature $`T_K`$ or by $`T`$, whichever is larger. The 2CK impurity density is the only adjustable parameter of the theory in the scaling regime. The quantitative agreement between the present theory and experiment and the fact that the experimental scaling property is not even qualitatively explained by any other type of interaction, provide strong evidence for the existence of 2CK impurities in Cu and Au wires, while there seem to be no such defects present in Ag wires. We have not attempted here to give a microscopic model for the physical realization of 2CK defects. For that purpose, it should be useful to perform numerical simulations  of dislocations in the respective materials.

## Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to thank A. Zawadowski, H. Pothier, B. L. Al’tshuler, D. Esteve, J. v. Delft, and P. Wölfle for stimulating and fruitful discussions. This work is supported by DFG and by grants of computing time from the J. von Neumann Institute for Computing (NIC) Jülich and from the HLRZ Stuttgart.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The next generation of high energy $`e^+e^{}`$ experiments, following the LEP and SLC programs, will be at a linear collider. The TESLA concept, based on super-conducting accelerating structures, will be able to deliver luminosities in excess to 1034 cm-2 s-1, at centre-of-mass energies ranging from the $`Z^0`$ pole up to about 1 TeV. Such a collider will naturally complement the physics reach of the Tevatron and LHC hadron colliders in the study of the mechanism of electro-weak symmetry breaking and in the search for new physics beyond the Standard Model. Both precision measurements and particle searches set stringent requirements on the efficiency and purity of the flavour identification of hadronic jets since final states including short-lived $`b`$ and $`c`$-quarks and $`\tau `$ leptons are expected to be the main signatures. High accuracy in the reconstruction of the charged particle trajectories close to their production point is required in order to reconstruct the topologies of the secondary vertices in the decay chain of short-lived heavy flavour particles.

If a light, elementary Higgs boson exists, as indicated by the LEP, SLD and LEP-2 data, it will be essential to carry out precision measurements of its couplings to the different fermion species as a proof of the mass generation mechanism and in order to identify its Standard Model or Supersymmetric nature . This can be achieved by accurate determinations of its decay rate to $`b\overline{b}`$, $`c\overline{c}`$, $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$, $`W^+W^{}`$ and gluon pairs to detect possible deviations from the Standard Model predictions. Since the rates for the Higgs boson decay modes into lighter fermions $`H^0c\overline{c}`$, $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ or into gluon pairs are expected to be only about 10% or less of that for the dominant $`H^0b\overline{b}`$ process, the extraction and measurement of these signals require the suppression of the $`b\overline{b}`$ contribution by a factor of twenty or better, while preserving a good efficiency.

The measurement of the Higgs-top Yukawa coupling as well as that of the top-quark mass will also require efficient $`b`$-tagging to reduce the combinatorial background in the reconstruction of the six and eight jet final states. If Supersymmetry is realized in nature, the study of its rich Higgs sector will also depend upon the efficient identification of $`b`$ jets and $`\tau `$ leptons to isolate the signals for the decays of the heavier $`A^0`$, $`H^0`$ and $`H^\pm `$ bosons from the severe combinatorial backgrounds in the complex multi-jet hadronic final states. Due to the expected large $`b`$ jet multiplicity, highly efficient tagging is required to preserve a sizeable statistics of the signal events. Finally, both $`b`$ and $`c`$-tagging will be important in the study of the quark scalar partners, while $`\tau `$ identification may be instrumental in isolating SUSY signals in large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ scenarios and Gauge Mediated Supersymmetry Breaking models.

In order to correlate the track extrapolation accuracy to the performances of a jet flavour tagging algorithm at the linear collider, Figure 1 shows the $`c`$ / $`b`$ quark separation capabilities under different assumptions for the track impact parameter resolution.

While the developments of Vertex Trackers from the LEP and SLD experiments to those at B-factories, the Tevatron and the LHC have addressed many crucial aspects, such as radiation hardness, read-out speed and the considerable size increase of the trackers, the impact parameter ($`i.p.`$) resolution, $`\sigma _{ip}`$, has not benefited of significant improvements. Limited in terms of multiple scattering at $`B`$ factories and by radiation damage in their closest approach to the beam at hadron colliders, the typical performances are comparable to those achieved at LEP: $`\sigma _{ip}`$ = 25 $`\mu `$m$``$70 $`\mu `$m/$`p_t`$ GeV/$`c`$. In order to fulfil its challenging requirements, the TESLA Vertex Tracker aims at significantly improving on the already outstanding SLD VXD3 performances of 8 $`\mu `$m$``$33 $`\mu `$m/$`p_t`$ GeV/$`c`$ . An improvement to $`\sigma _{ip}`$ to 5 $`\mu `$m$``$10 $`\mu `$m/$`p_t`$ GeV/$`c`$ corresponds to a factor $`2`$ increase in charm jet tagging efficiency and a factor $`1.25`$ increase in beauty jet tagging efficiency at constant mis-identification probability. A precise determination of the track perigee parameters close to their production point also assists in the track reconstruction and improves the momentum resolution for charged particles.

The design of the TESLA Vertex Tracker and the choice of the sensor technology are driven by these requirements, to be achieved within the constraints set by the accelerator induced backgrounds at the interaction region and by the characteristics of the physics events. In the next section, the conceptual design proposed for the Vertex Tracker of the TESLA detector is presented while Section 3 reviews its expected performances. In Section 4, the silicon pixel sensor design, developed to overcome the hybrid pixel sensor limitations in terms of single point space resolution is discussed in details. A road-map of dedicated R&D activity, to validate the concepts presented, concludes.

## 2 Vertex Tracker Conceptual Design

The proposed Vertex Tracker geometry consists of three layers of pixel detectors, providing at least three space points for charged particles with polar angles down to $`|\mathrm{cos}\theta |`$ = 0.995. In order to optimise the amount of material traversed by the particles and their angle of incidence on the sensitive plane, the outermost layer is split into a barrel section and a forward crown as shown in Figure 2. A Geant model of this geometry has been implemented in the Brahms simulation program  and used for its optimisation and the evaluation of the performances in terms of the impact parameter resolution as discussed in Section 4. The radial position of the innermost layer is set at 1.5 cm by the beam-pipe radius, limited to 1.4 cm due to constraints on the design of the machine collimation system. The outermost layer has been positioned at a radius of 10 cm, fitting the proposed general detector concept that includes two further silicon detector layers located between the Vertex Tracker and the TPC main tracker.

The number of additional intermediate layers is limited by the multiple scattering. Detailed simulation studies, assuming a layer efficiency of 97%, have shown that an optimal configuration consists of one intermediate layer located at 3.5 cm, this layer assisting the extrapolation to the innermost layer affected by the higher occupancy and supplementing a space point close enough to the interaction point in cases of failures on the first layer. Overlaps of neighbouring detector modules provide an useful mean to verify their relative alignment using particle tracks from dedicated calibration runs, taken at $`Z`$ centre-of-mass energy.

The limitation in the amount of material traversed by charged particles being a major concern to minimise the multiple scattering effects, the pixel Vertex Tracker requires a light support structure able to cope with the load of the detector plaquettes and to ensure their stability to better than their intrinsic single point resolution. The proposed concept for the mechanical structure envisages the use of diamond-coated thin carbon fibre support shells, acting also as heat pipes to extract the heat dissipated by the read-out electronics, uniformly distributed over the whole active surface of the detector. A support plate at each end of the barrel section, made of two thin carbon fibre skins glued together by means of small spacers ensures the needed rigidity and provides a routing for the cables and a support for the forward crown (see Figure 3).

Assuming a power dissipation of 40 $`\mu `$W/channel, the total heat flux is 790 W, corresponding to 2600 W/m2, for a read-out pitch of 100 $`\mu `$m. In presence of a power dissipation $`Q`$, the temperature gradient along the silicon sensor $`\mathrm{\Delta }T`$ scales as $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=\frac{Q\mathrm{}^2}{2kt}`$, where $`\mathrm{}`$ is the distance, $`t`$ the sensor thickness and $`k`$ the thermal conductivity. Owing to its high thermal conductivity (1000-2000 W/m K), small thermal expansion ($`2\times 10^6`$ $`{}_{}{}^{}C`$-1), high electrical resistivity and large radiation length $`X_0`$, diamond is particularly well suited as a heat pipe material. The envisaged cooling scheme consists of a diamond coated heat pipe integrated onto the support layer and heat drains regularly spaced. These drains, consisting of pipes circulating liquid coolant, must be placed every 5 cm along the longitudinal coordinate, except for the innermost layer where they can be placed only at the detector ends to minimise the amount of material. The low duty cycle of the accelerator, makes interesting to consider pulsed power operation to reduce power dissipation.

Signals can be routed along the beam pipe and the end-cap disks to the repeater electronics installed between the vertex detector and the forward masks which shield the detector from background. The material budget has been estimated by assuming 200 $`\mu `$m thick detectors and back-thinning of the read-out chip to 50 $`\mu `$m, corresponding to 0.3 % X0, and the support structure. It corresponds to 1.6 % X0 for the full tracker (see Figure 4 and Table 1).

The expected data size from the Vertex Tracker has been computed assuming 600 hits per bunch crossing from background sources and 50 charged particles. Taking 16 bits per pixel, this corresponds to 150 kbyte of data from the Vertex Tracker per $`e^+e^{}`$ event.

## 3 Simulation Studies and Vertex Tracker Performances

The performances of the pixel Vertex Tracker have been evaluated for $`e^+e^{}HZq\overline{q}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ and $`e^+e^{}t\overline{t}W^+bW^{}\overline{b}`$ events at $`\sqrt{s}`$ = 350 and 500 GeV using full Geant simulation. Tracks reconstructed in the TPC Tesla main tracker have been extrapolated to the detector planes of the pixel Vertex Tracker and a dedicated pattern recognition program has been used to define the association of the recorded hits to the extrapolated tracks. While no attempt has been made to define local track element using only the three layers of the Vertex Tracker, these can be efficiently defined by adding the hits on the two layers of the Silicon Intermediate Tracker, foreseen at radii of 16 and 30 cm. The impact parameter resolution has been studied as a function of the Vertex Tracker geometry, namely the radial position of the second layer, and of the assumed single point resolution $`\sigma _{point}`$. Results are summarised in Tables 2 and 3.

The efficiency for associating at least two hits to an extrapolated charged particle with $`p>`$ 1 GeV/$`c`$ has been found to be $`95\%`$. The track fit has been performed using a Kalman-filter  and the impact parameter resolution has been obtained from the estimated covariance matrix. The results obtained assuming $`\sigma _{point}`$ = 7 $`\mu `$m, are shown in Figure 5.

## 4 Hybrid Pixel Sensors

The main requirements for the Vertex Tracker sensors may be summarised as follows:

* A single point resolution $``$ 7 $`\mu `$m and a thickness of $`200`$ $`\mu `$m to attain the required impact parameter resolution.
* Time stamping capabilities to identify particles originating from a single bunch crossing, occurring at TESLA every 337 (189) ns at $`\sqrt{s}`$ = 500 (800) GeV to reduce the pair background and the number of $`\gamma \gamma \mathrm{hadrons}`$ events overlapped to the products of a $`e^+e^{}`$ collision.
* A sensitive cell area below $`150\times 150\mu \mathrm{m}^2`$ to keep the occupancy from backgrounds and dense hadronic jets below 1%.

At present, two silicon sensor technologies have the potential to satisfy these specifications: monolithic (Charged Coupled Devices (CCD) and CMOS imagers) and hybrid pixels sensors. Hybrid pixel sensors have the advantage of allowing fast time stamping and sparse data scan read-out, thereby reducing the occupancies due to backgrounds, and of being tolerant to neutron fluxes well beyond those expected at the linear collider. Both these characteristics have been demonstrated for their application in the LHC experiments. However, improvements in the pixel sensor spatial resolution and a reduction of the sensor total thickness are needed. These represent areas of R&D that are specific to this linear collider application. CCD require a complementary development. Their readout speed and radiation tolerance need to be improved, their resolution and thickness being already close to requirements. CMOS imagers have recently appeared and could overcome the CCD limitations while offering similar advantages.

A single point precision at the 5 $`\mu `$m level can be obtained by sampling the diffusion of the carriers generated along the particle path and adopting an analog read-out to interpolate the signals of neighbouring cells. Since the charge diffusion r.m.s. is $``$ 8 $`\mu `$m in 300 $`\mu `$m thick silicon, an efficient sampling requires a pixel pitch well below 50 $`\mu `$m. At present, the most advanced pixel read-out electronics have minimum cell dimension of $`50\times 300\mu \mathrm{m}^2`$, limiting an efficient signal interpolation. Even if a sizeable reduction in the cell dimension may be envisaged by the deep submicron trend in the VLSI development, a sensor design overcoming such basic limitation is definitely worth being explored.

### 4.1 Detector design and first prototype production

The pixel detector design discussed here exploits a layout inherited from the microstrip detectors  where it is assumed to have a read-out pitch n times larger than the pixel pitch. The proposed sensor layout is shown in Figure 6 for n=4. In such a configuration, the charge carriers created underneath an interleaved pixel will induce a signal on the output nodes, capacitively coupled to the interleaved pixel.

In a simplified model where the detector is reduced to a capacitive network, the ratio of the signal amplitudes on the output nodes at the left hand side and right hand side of the interleaved pixel (in both dimensions) should have a linear dependence on the particle position. The ratio between the inter-pixel capacitance and the pixel capacitance to backplane plays a crucial role in the detector design, as it defines the signal amplitude reduction at the output nodes and therefore the maximum sustainable number of interleaved pixels. Recently published results on $`200\mu \mathrm{m}`$ readout pitch microstrip detectors have demonstrated a $`10\mu \mathrm{m}`$ resolution for a layout with three interleaved strips ($`50\mu \mathrm{m}`$ strip pitch) and $`\mathrm{S}/\mathrm{N}80`$ . Similar results may be expected in a pixel detector, taking into account that a lower noise is achievable due to the intrisically smaller load capacitance and that the charge sharing on four output nodes makes possible to reconstruct the particle position in two dimensions. Further improvements are possible by sampling the charge carrier diffusion at a smaller pitch.

Prototypes of detectors with interleaved pixels have been designed and manufactured. The layout of one of the structures is shown in Figure 6. A series of guard rings defines the detector sensitive area. A bias grid allows the polarization of the interleaved pixels too; each $`\mathrm{p}^+`$ implant is connected to the metal bias line by polysilicon resistors in the $`13\mathrm{M}\mathrm{\Omega }`$ range. A metal layer is deposited on top of the pixels to be connected to the VLSI cell. The backplane has a meshed metal layer to allow the use of an IR diode for charge collection studies. In a 4”, 350 $`\mu `$m thick, wafer 36 structures were fit, for 17 different layouts; a VLSI cell of $`200\times 200\mu \mathrm{m}^2`$ or $`300\times 300\mu \mathrm{m}^2`$ was assumed and detectors with a number of interleaved pixels ranging between 0 and 3 and different areas were designed.

Ten high resistivity wafers $`(58\mathrm{k}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{cm})`$ were processed together with an equal number of low resistivity wafers for process control . The technological sequence may be outlined as follows :

* wafer oxidation by HCl gettering, to form a 700 nm thick Silicon dioxide layer;
* Phosphorus glass deposition from a $`\mathrm{POCl}_3`$ source followed by drive-in in oxidizing environment. The P diffusion was meant to form an $`\mathrm{n}^+`$ layer on the backplane, to guarantee a good ohmic contact with the metal grid;
* pixel and guard ring window opening in the photomask, applying a wet etching technique;
* Boron diffusion, followed by a drive-in process. The resulting junctions were $`0.7\mu \mathrm{m}`$ deep;
* high quality thin oxide (200 nm) growth at $`1000{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{o}}\mathrm{C}`$ to define the integrated coupling capacitor on every pixel. This step was carefully monitored to achieve an extremely low density of mobile ion charge;
* polysilicon layer deposition (500 nm thick) and implantation, for the bias resistors. A special high temperature annealing was optimised to obtain the required sheet resistence $`250\mathrm{k}\mathrm{\Omega }`$;
* resistor pattern definition by photolitography;
* planarisation by BPSG (Boron-Phosphorus-Silicon Glass) chemical vapour deposition, followed by a high temperature annealing;
* resistor coating by photolitography, applying plasma and wet etching technique;
* definition of the contact window between the resistors and the $`\mathrm{p}^+`$ implants. To decrease the contact resistence, Boron implantation was used;
* metal deposition by sputtering a $`1.2\mu \mathrm{m}`$ thick Al-Si-Cu layer, patterned by photolitography and plasma etching;
* backside metallisation grid by Al evaporation and plasma etching
* final wafer sintering in Hydrogen at $`450{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{o}}\mathrm{C}`$ for 20’.

Standard cleaning was performed before each high temperature step. After the processing, two wafers were retained by the factory for a destructive analysis and two others were stored for later use. All of the structures on the available wafers were visually inspected, tested up to $`250\mathrm{V}`$ and characteristics I-V and C-V curves produced. In Figure 7 the value of the currents and detector capacitances at depletion voltage are shown for all of structures in one of the wafers. In Figure 8 the typical $`\mathrm{I}\mathrm{vs}.\mathrm{V}`$ and $`1/\mathrm{C}^2\mathrm{vs}.\mathrm{V}`$ curves of a good structure are shown.

While the $`\mathrm{C}\mathrm{vs}.\mathrm{V}`$ curves behave as expected, the current has a peculiar trend. After a plateau is reached at full depletion, the current increases significantly at $`V=5070`$ V. For most of the structures this is a mild increase, but most of the rejected detectors are characterized by a steep slope, eventually resulting in a breakdown for values of the reverse bias voltage below 100 V. Independent measurements of the guard ring and bias grid current have shown the latter to be responsible for this effect, possibly due to sharp edges where the electric field achieves high values. The average yield over the tested wafers is about 50%; most of the rejected structures feature either an early breakdown or an extremely high leakage current, independent of the applied voltage, correlated to surface defects possibly associated to the plasma etching of the Al pattern. An improvement in the technology sequence, requiring a better planarisation and avoiding plasma etching has been agreed with the manufacturer. Good structures are characterised by a leakage current at the $`10\mathrm{n}\mathrm{A}/\mathrm{cm}^2`$ level and backplane capacitances in agreement to the expectations.

### 4.2 Interpixel and backplane capacitance simulation
and measurements

In order to study the charge collection properties of the proposed detector, a detailed characterization of its electrostatic properties is necessary. In a simplified model, the detector may be reduced to a capacitive network. Each pixel is a node characterised by the backplane capacitance ($`C_{bp}`$) and the inter-pixel capacitances ($`C_{ip}`$), dominated by the couplings to the nearest and diagonal neighbours. The $`C_{ip}/C_{bp}`$ ratio is crucial in the detector design, as it defines the signal amplitude reduction (an effective charge loss) at the output nodes. In order to be able to evaluate the expected behaviour of the prototypes, the capacitances were measured and calculated. Moreover, the obtained values were used as input for a network analysis providing an estimate of the charge loss. Since single pixel capacitances are expected to be at the 10 $`fF`$ level, the measurement conditions were optimised as follows:

* The capacitance was measured using a Hewlett-Packard 4280 CV meter, operating at 1 MHz. A cable correction procedure accounting for finite admittances to ground was used. Moreover, an open circuit correction was applied, measuring the capacitance with raised probe tips.
* All pixels along a single metal bias line were set in parallel, isolating the line from the bias grid (see Figure 6). The number of pixels along a line ranges between 64 and 254, depending on the pixel pitch, thus increasing the measured capacitance values to 0.5-2 $`pF`$.
* For every structure, three bias lines were isolated and the capacitance for each of them, for three doublets in parallel and for one triplet was measured. The offset in the linear regression for the capacitance versus the number of lines measured the left-over parasitic contributions after the cable correction.
* For each structure, independent measurements of the total interpixel capacitance and of the sum of the interpixel and backplane capacitance were done.

The numerical estimate is essential to break down the measurements in the single inter-pixel contributions, used to specify the capacitive network. The detector was simply modelled as an electrode matrix facing a metal plane, respecting the pitch, implant width and dector thickness of the different prototypes. The capacitances were obtained solving the Laplace equation with suitable boundary conditions. In fact, setting 1 V on the central pixel and grounding the neighbouring pixels and the backplane, the stored charge on each pixel numerically equals its capacitance with respect to the central pixel, having a backplane capacitance numerically equals to the stored charge on the backplane. The Laplace equation was solved in a $`5\times 5`$ pixel matrix, surrounded by a guard ring, with a finite element analysis performed using the OPERA-3D package . The mesh needed by the equation solver was optimised accounting for the physics aspects and the characteristics of the finite element procedure:

* because of the boundary conditions, in our model the potential should always be positive
* the charge neutrality should not be violated, i.e. the sum of the charge on all pixels and on the backplane should be zero.
* a finer mesh had to be foreseen in the regions with higher $`grad𝐄`$.

The final optimisation was based on the minimisation of the charge neutrality violation; moreover, this was assumed as a measurement of the uncertainty on the simulation results and defines the errors in the summary table. By changing the the mesh characteristics in the high $`grad𝐄`$ region, the net effect was estimated to be at the 10% level. The results of measurements and simulation are reported in Table 4.

The consistency of the measurements is checked comparing the value obtained subtracting the measured interpixel capacitance from the measurement of $`\mathrm{C}_{\mathrm{ip}}+\mathrm{C}_{\mathrm{bp}}`$ (measurement I in Table 4) and the backplane capacitance from the asymptotic value in the CV curves, normalized by the number of pixels in the matrix (measurement II). The measurement cross check is satisfactory and the comparison with the calculated values is fair for all of the structures but chip 4, where difficulties both in the measurement and in the simulation were expected because of the small pitch. In particular, the maximum number of elements was preventing an optimal interpixel mesh and the extension to a larger pixel matrix, crucial for a proper interpixel capacitance evaluation of pixels with 50 $`\mu `$m pitch in a 350 $`\mu `$m thick detector. The calculated single pixel main capacitances are summarised in Table 5, together with the maximum charge loss resulting by a network analysis with a dedicated software based on the node potential method . The role of the interpixel capacitance $`C_{ip}`$ may be stressed referring to chip 4, where the maximum charge loss is reduced to 51% if the measured $`C_{ip}`$ values are taken.

### 4.3 Charge collection studies

The achievable resolution is proportional to the pixel pitch and the Noise over Signal ratio (N/S). If the implant pitch is comparable to the diffusion width, the collected charge at the output nodes will have both the contributions by the direct diffusion and the linear share by the capacitive coupling. In such a case, an improvement beyond the binary value given by the $`implantpitch/\sqrt{12}`$ may be expected. The N/S in pixel detectors can easily exceeds 1/100, due to the small detector capacitance. Because of this, an effective signal interpolation may be expected even with $`50\%`$ signal reduction.

The charge collection properties and the achievable resolution have been directly studied by shining an infrared diode spot on the backplane of a structure with 60 $`\mu `$m implant width, 100 $`\mu `$m implant pitch and 200 $`\mu `$m read-out pitch. At the diode wavelength of $`\lambda `$ = 880 nm, the penetration depth in the silicon substrate corresponds to 10 $`\mu `$m. The IR light has been focused to a spot size of $``$ 80 $`\mu `$m and its position in the detector plane controlled by a 2-D stage allowing to scan the pixel array with micro-metric accuracy. A sketch of the tested structure and the scan direction is displayed in Figure 9. A matrix of 4 $`\times `$ 7 read-out pixels has been wire-bonded to a VA-1 chip . For each spot position, 1000 events have been recorded. The common mode, pedestal and noise calculation has been initialised for the first 300 events. In the subsequent events light was injected every 10 events, allowing for continuous pedestal tracking. Because of the limited data volume, no on-line suppression has been applied and the data reduction and cluster search has been performed off-line. Results have been averaged over the 70 recorded light pulses, with a peak pulse height corresponding to N/S $``$ 1/100 and a maximum charge loss of $``$ 40%, in agreement with the network analysis. The charge sharing may be characterised by the $`\eta `$ function, defined as $`\eta =\frac{PH_i}{PH_{cluster}}`$, where $`PH_i`$ is the pulse height on the reference pixel $`i`$, normalised to the cluster pulse height.

The $`\eta `$ function by construction ranges in the \[0;1\] interval and it has a period equals to the readout pitch. The measured pulse height and $`\eta `$ distributions are shown in Figure 10, where the reference pixel for the first period has a centre at x = 100 $`\mu m`$. For the structure under test, the ratio between the spot size and the pitch $``$ 0.8 and the experimental $`\eta `$ curve can be understood as a superposition of the effects due to the diffusion of the charge carriers created by the IR spot on the neighbouring junctions and by the capacitive charge sharing. The $`\eta `$ parametrisation allows a coordinate reconstruction on an event by event basis and the measurement of the resolution, obtained comparing the laser spot position by the micro-metric stage to the reconstructed values. The results are shown in Figure 11.

In the interleaved pixels, where the charge sharing is most efficient, the resolution approaches $`3\mu m`$, irrespective of the $``$ 40% charge loss. On the other hand, when the charge sharing is minimal the resolution degrades to $`10\mu m`$, even with a peak pulse height. According to these results, the binary resolution defined by the $`implantpitch/\sqrt{12}`$ can be improved by about a factor 4 for a configuration where the ratio between the charge carrier cloud r.m.s. and the pixel pitch $``$ 0.8. A similar scaling factor can be expected for a minimum ionising particle detected by a pixel sensor with $`2025\mu m`$ pitch, as long as the peak $`N/S1/100`$ and the charge loss is $`50\%`$. This would lead to an intrinsic resolution $`2\mu m`$, matching well the requirements discussed above.

## 5 Discussion and Conclusions

A Vertex Tracker based on a novel design of hybrid silicon pixel detectors is able to provide performances that are well adapted to the requirements of the TESLA $`e^+e^{}`$ collider while ensuring a significant safety margin against the influence of backgrounds. The ability to identify the individual bunch crossing of a $`e^+e^{}`$ event reduces the occupancy and the confusion rate from pair background and, more importantly, probability of overlap for a $`\gamma \gamma \mathrm{hadrons}`$ event. This ensures that the identification of processes characterised by missing energy and/or heavy flavour jets at small polar angles is not confused for this underlying background .

The results reported in this paper conclude the feasibility study of the proposed detector concept and indicate the direction for an intense dedicated R&D programme towards a final detector design. This has to address several crucial issues:

* Sensor development. In order to achieve the desired resolution, a $`25\mu \mathrm{m}`$ implant pitch detector is needed. The step from $`50\mathrm{to}25\mu \mathrm{m}`$ is far from being a simple scaling. In fact, because of the limited inter-pixel space, biasing by suitable polysilicon resistors is not feasible. The most promising solution is based on a punch-through mechanism, where very small $`\mathrm{p}^+`$ dots along the metal lines of the bias grid serve sub-matrices of four pixels. Moreover, the design has to be optimised with respect to the inter-pixel to backplane capacitance ratio, with a target charge loss below 50%. A prototype run to validate the possible solutions is planned on a short time scale; this essentially concerns small test structures, meant to be read-out with a low noise microstrip detector electronics chip;
* Electronics chip. On very general ground, each VLSI cell mating the pixel will integrate a low noise and low power charge sensitive amplifier, followed by a CR-RC shaper. Both blocks will be based on the folded cascade architecture with a PMOS transistor, chosen for its lower $`1/f`$ noise coefficient at its input. The analog information of the pulse height could be efficiently translated into a time-over-threshold, locally digitised on every VLSI pixel cell. Because of the low duty cycle of TESLA, a pulsed mode operation seems very well possible, thus considerably reducing the power consumption. A readout system based on a matrix sparse data scan has to be included in the design, together with time stamping of each pixel hit. The shift-register architecture proposed for the ATLAS pixel detectors could be tailored to the linear collider requirements. An end-of-column logical circuitry would deal with data packing and pipelining. The design of the chip should be optimised with the target of a cell dimension not exceeding $`75\times 75\mu \mathrm{m}^2`$, to fully exploit the capacitive charge division mechanism. The development of a dedicated electronics chip being a considerable financial effort, this R&D phase should be considered at an advance stage of the project approval process;
* Technological development. Radiation hardening of the sensor and electronics design, back-thinning of the detector and chip, high density interconnection (flip-chip), cooling, mechanics and system integration require an experimental effort to evolve from the present conceptual design to a fully engineered study that should be planned at a later stage.

## Acknowledgements

The R&D activity summarised in this report has been carried out in the framework of the $`2^{nd}`$ Joint ECFA/DESY Study on Physics and Detectors for a Linear Electron-Positron Collider and it has been supported in part by MURST under grant 3418/C.I. and by the Academy of Finland under the R&D Program for Detectors at Future Colliders grant. We wish to thank R. Brenner, P. Jalocha, C. Meroni, R. Orava, H. Palka, T. Vanhala and K.Österberg for their contributions at different stages of this activity and C. Damerell for his suggestions.