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# Signals of the Abelian 𝑍' boson within the model independent analysis of the LEP data

## 1 Introduction

The recently finished LEP2 experiments have accumulated a huge amount of data allowing to verify the predictions of the Standard Model (SM) of elementary particles as well as to estimate the energy scale of new physics beyond the SM. Although the complete set of the LEP2 data is still being combined, the preliminary total cross sections and the forward-backward asymmetries have already been adduced in the literature .

In the present note we are going to discuss the problem of searching for signals of the heavy Abelian $`Z^{}`$ boson  by means of analysis of the LEP data on the $`e^+e^{}\overline{f}f`$ processes. This particle is the necessary element of different models extending the SM. The low limits on its mass estimated for the variety of popular models ($`\chi `$, $`\psi `$, $`\eta `$, L–R models  and the Sequential Standard Model (SSM) ) are found to be in the energy interval 500–2000 GeV  (see Table 1 which reproduces Table 8.9 of Ref. ). As it is seen, the values of $`m_Z^{}`$ (as well as the $`Z^{}`$ couplings to the SM particles) are strongly model-dependent.

Other approach to find signals of new physics beyond the SM is the model-independent analysis. In this consideration a number of different contact interactions is introduced instead of specifying the heavy particle content. Since only one parameter of new physics can be successfully fitted, the LEP Collaborations usually discuss eight ‘models’ (LL, RR, LR, RL, VV, AA, A0, V0) which assume specific helicity couplings between the initial state and the final state fermion currents. Each model is described by only one non-zero four-fermion coupling, while others are set to zero. For example, in the LL model the non-zero coupling of left-handed fermions is taken into account. The signal of a new heavy particle is fitted by considering the interference of the SM amplitude with the contact four-fermion term. Whatever physics beyond the SM exists, it has to manifest itself in some contact coupling mentioned. Hence, it is possible to find a low limit on the masses of the states responsible for the interactions considered. In principle, a number of states may contribute into each of the models. Therefore, the purpose of the fit described by these models is to find any signal of new physics. No specific types of new particles are considered in these models. However, the virtual states of a realistic heavy particle (for instance, the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ boson) contribute to several contact interactions simultaneously and the corresponding couplings cannot be switched off separately.

Notice the fits for the process $`e^+e^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ in Ref. . A half of the eight models mentioned demonstrates the one standard deviation from the SM predictions. In this regard, we note Ref.  where these models were applied to the Bhabha scattering $`e^+e^{}e^+e^{}(\gamma )`$. The deviations from the SM at the $`1\sigma `$–level were found again, whereas the AA model shows the $`2\sigma `$–level deviation. However, these deviations could not be interpreted as the signal of the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ boson.

Because of the mentioned arguments it seems to us reasonable to find some model independent signals of the $`Z^{}`$ boson. To elaborate that we have taken into consideration some general principles of the field theory which give possibility to relate the parameters of different scattering processes. Then we introduced the variables, convenient to pick up uniquely the $`Z^{}`$ boson (or other heavy states). In Ref.  the model-independent sign-definite observables for the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ detection in four-fermion scattering processes at $`\sqrt{s}500`$ GeV were introduced.

As it was pointed out in Ref. , some $`Z^{}`$ couplings to the SM particles could be related by using the requirement of renormalizability of the underlying model remaining in other respects unspecified. The relations between the parameters of new physics appearing due to the renormalizability were called the renormalization group (RG) relations. The derived in Ref.  RG relations predict two possible types of the low-energy $`Z^{}`$ interactions with the SM fields, namely, the chiral and the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ bosons. Each $`Z^{}`$ type is described by a few couplings to the SM fields. Therefore, it is possible to introduce observables which uniquely pick up the $`Z^{}`$ virtual state . In the present paper we discuss the observables at LEP energies and the constraints on possible signals of Abelian $`Z^{}`$-boson following from the analysis of the LEP data. The content of the paper is the following. In sect. 2 the necessary information on the model-independent description of the $`Z^{}`$ interactions at low energies and the RG relations are given. In sect. 3 the observables to pick up uniquely the $`Z^{}`$ boson are introduced. In the last section the results on the LEP data fit and the conclusions as well as further prospects are discussed.

## 2 $`Z^{}`$ couplings to fermion and scalar fields

The Abelian $`Z^{}`$ boson can be introduced in a phenomenological way by defining its effective low-energy couplings to the SM fields. Such a parameterization is well known in the literature . Since we are going to account of the $`Z^{}`$ effects in the low-energy $`e^+e^{}l^+l^{}`$ processes, we consider the tree-level $`Z^{}`$ interactions, only. As the decoupling theorem  guarantees, they are of renormalizable type, since the non-renormalizable interactions are generated at higher energies due to radiation corrections and suppressed by the inverse heavy mass. The SM gauge group $`SU(2)_L\times U(1)_Y`$ is considered as a subgroup of the underlying theory group. So, the mixing interactions of the types $`Z^{}W^+W^{}`$, $`Z^{}ZZ`$, … are absent at the tree level. Under these assumptions the $`Z^{}`$ couplings to the fermion and scalar fields are described by the Lagrangian:

$``$ $`=`$ $`\left|\left(D_\mu ^{\mathrm{ew},\varphi }{\displaystyle \frac{i\stackrel{~}{g}}{2}}\stackrel{~}{Y}(\varphi )\stackrel{~}{B}_\mu \right)\varphi \right|^2+`$ (1)
$`i{\displaystyle \underset{f=f_L,f_R}{}}\overline{f}\gamma ^\mu \left(D_\mu ^{\mathrm{ew},f}{\displaystyle \frac{i\stackrel{~}{g}}{2}}\stackrel{~}{Y}(f)\stackrel{~}{B}_\mu \right)f,`$
where $`\varphi `$ is the SM scalar doublet, $`\stackrel{~}{B}_\mu `$ denotes the massive $`Z^{}`$ field before the spontaneous breaking of the electroweak symmetry, and the summation over the all SM left-handed fermion doublets, $`f_L=\{(f_u)_L,(f_d)_L\}`$, and the right-handed singlets, $`f_R=(f_u)_R,(f_d)_R`$, is understood. The notation $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$ stands for the charge corresponding to the $`Z^{}`$ gauge group, $`D_\mu ^{\mathrm{ew},\varphi }`$ and $`D_\mu ^{\mathrm{ew},f}`$ are the electroweak covariant derivatives. Diagonal $`2\times 2`$ matrices $`\stackrel{~}{Y}(\varphi )=\mathrm{diag}(\stackrel{~}{Y}_{\varphi ,1},\stackrel{~}{Y}_{\varphi ,2})`$, $`\stackrel{~}{Y}(f_L)=\mathrm{diag}(\stackrel{~}{Y}_{L,f_u},\stackrel{~}{Y}_{L,f_d})`$ and numbers $`\stackrel{~}{Y}(f_R)=\stackrel{~}{Y}_{R,f}`$ are unknown $`Z^{}`$ generators characterizing the model beyond the SM.

In particular, the Lagrangian (1) describes the $`Z`$$`Z^{}`$ mixing of order $`m_Z^2/m_Z^{}^2`$ which is proportional to $`\stackrel{~}{Y}_{\varphi ,2}`$ and originated by the diagonalization of the neutral boson states. The mixing contributes to the scattering amplitudes and cannot be neglected at the LEP energies .

Thus, the $`Z^{}`$ couplings to any fermion $`f`$ are parameterized by the numbers $`\stackrel{~}{Y}_{L,f}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{Y}_{R,f}`$. Alternatively, one can use the couplings to the axial-vector and vector fermion currents, $`a_Z^{}^l(\stackrel{~}{Y}_{R,l}\stackrel{~}{Y}_{L,l})/2`$ and $`v_Z^{}^l(\stackrel{~}{Y}_{L,l}+\stackrel{~}{Y}_{R,l})/2`$.

The parameters $`a_f`$, $`v_f`$ are usually treated as independent numbers. However, they are related if the underlying theory is renormalizable. The detailed discussion of this point as well as the derivation of the RG relations are given in Ref. . Therein it is shown that two possible types of the $`Z^{}`$ bosons are possible – the chiral and the Abelian ones. In the present paper we are interested in the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ couplings which are described by the relations:

$$v_fa_f=v_f^{}a_f^{},a_f=T_{3,f}\stackrel{~}{Y}_\varphi ,\stackrel{~}{Y}_{\varphi ,1}=\stackrel{~}{Y}_{\varphi ,2}\stackrel{~}{Y}_\varphi $$
(2)
where $`T_f^3`$ is the third component of the fermion weak isospin, and $`f^{}`$ means the isopartner of $`f`$ (namely, $`l^{}=\nu _l,\nu _l^{}=l,\mathrm{}`$). The relations (2) ensure, in particular, the invariance of the Yukawa terms with respect to the effective low-energy $`\stackrel{~}{U}(1)`$ subgroup corresponding to the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ boson. As it follows from the relations, the couplings of the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ to the axial-vector fermion currents have the universal absolute value proportional to the $`Z^{}`$ coupling to the scalar doublet. So, in what follows we will use the short notation $`a=a_l=\stackrel{~}{Y}_\varphi /2`$.

Notice that the same relations (2) hold in the two-Higgs-doublet model (THDM) . As a consequence, the results of the present note are also valid for the case of the THDM as the low-energy theory.

Because of a fewer number of independent $`Z^{}`$ couplings it is possible to introduce the observables convenient for detecting uniquely the $`Z^{}`$ signals in experiments. In what follows, we take into account the RG relations (2) in order to constrain signals of the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ boson.

## 3 Observables

Consider the lepton processes $`e^+e^{}V^{}l^+l^{}`$ ($`l=\mu ,\tau `$) with the neutral vector boson exchange ($`V=A,Z,Z^{}`$). We assume the non-polarized initial- and final-state fermions. At LEP energies $`\sqrt{s}200`$ GeV the leptons can be treated as massless particles. In this approximation the left-handed and the right-handed fermions can be substituted by the helicity states.

To take into consideration the correlations (2) let us introduce the observable $`\sigma _l(z)`$ defined as the difference of cross sections integrated in some ranges of the scattering angle $`\theta `$:

$`\sigma _l(z)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle _z^1}{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _l}{d\mathrm{cos}\theta }}d\mathrm{cos}\theta {\displaystyle _1^z}{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _l}{d\mathrm{cos}\theta }}d\mathrm{cos}\theta `$
$`=`$ $`\sigma _l^T\left[A_l^{FB}\left(1z^2\right){\displaystyle \frac{z}{4}}\left(3+z^2\right)\right],`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _l(z)`$ $``$ $`\sigma _l(z)\sigma _l^{\mathrm{SM}}(z),`$ (3)
where $`z`$ stands for the cosine of the boundary angle, $`\sigma _l^T`$ denotes the total cross section and $`A_l^{FB}`$ is the forward-backward asymmetry of the process. The idea of introducing the $`z`$-dependent observable (3) is to choose the value of the kinematic parameter $`z`$ in such a way that to pick up the characteristic features of the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ signals. Since the observable $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _l(z)`$ is a small quantity, it can be computed in lower order by the Born amplitudes for $`e^+e^{}V^{}l^+l^{}`$ $`(V=\gamma ,Z,Z^{})`$.

The expansion of the $`Z^{}`$-boson propagator $`(sm_Z^{}^2)^1`$ and the $`Z`$$`Z^{}`$ mixing angle in the inverse $`Z^{}`$ mass produces a number of terms of order $`m_Z^{}^2`$ and higher. The lower-level contributions describe the four-fermion contact interactions and contain the ratio $`\stackrel{~}{g}^2/m_Z^{}^2`$ of the $`Z^{}`$ mass and the charge $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$, only. Thus, the quantities $`m_Z^{}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$ cannot be measured separately by the fit of observables in the leading order in $`m_Z^{}^2`$. In what follows we will also treat the terms of order $`m_Z^{}^4`$. As we will show, these contributions allow one to fit both the four-fermion coupling constant $`\stackrel{~}{g}^2/m_Z^{}^2`$ and the $`Z^{}`$ mass, if the cross sections at different center-of-mass energies are taken into account.

Due to the correlations between the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ couplings the cross section (3) can be written as follows

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _l(z)=\underset{j=0}{\overset{2}{}}\left[A_j(s,z)+\zeta B_j(s,z)\right]ϵ_j+\underset{j=0}{\overset{2}{}}\underset{k=0}{\overset{j}{}}C_{jk}(s,z)ϵ_jϵ_k,$$
(4)
where we introduce the dimensionless quantities

$`ϵ_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{g}^2m_Z^2a^2}{4\pi m_Z^{}^2}},ϵ_1={\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{g}^2m_Z^2v_ev_l}{4\pi m_Z^{}^2}},`$
$`ϵ_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{g}^2m_Z^2a(v_e+v_l)}{4\pi m_Z^{}^2}},\zeta ={\displaystyle \frac{m_Z^2}{m_Z^{}^2}}.`$ (5)
The functions $`A_j(z,s)`$, $`B_j(z,s)`$ and $`C_{jk}(z,s)`$ are determined by the SM couplings and masses, only. They are also independent of the lepton generation. The factors $`A_j`$ describe the leading-order contributions, whereas others correspond to the higher-order corrections in the inverse $`Z^{}`$ mass.

As it was argued in Refs. , there is a region of values $`z`$, at which all the factors $`A_j`$ except for $`A_0`$ contribute less than 2%. Since the parameter $`ϵ_0`$ is a positive quantity by the definition, it is possible to construct a sign-definite observable by specifying the appropriate value of the kinematic parameter $`z`$. This value, $`z=z^{}`$, can be chosen in order to maximize the relative contribution of the sign-definite terms in $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _l(z)`$. To take into account the order of each term in the inverse $`Z^{}`$ mass, we introduce positive ‘weights’ $`\omega _B\zeta `$ and $`\omega _C|ϵ_j|`$ for the higher-order contributions. Thus, $`z^{}`$ is found by the maximization of the following function:

$$F=\frac{|A_0|+\omega _B|B_0|+\omega _C|C_{00}|}{_{j=0}^2\left(|A_j|+\omega _B|B_j|+_{k=0}^j\omega _C|C_{jk}|\right)}.$$
(6)
The numeric values of the ‘weights’ $`\omega _B`$ and $`\omega _C`$ can be taken from the present day bounds on the contact couplings  or . As the computation shows, the value of $`z^{}`$ with the accuracy $`10^3`$ depends on the order of the ‘weight’ magnitudes, only. So, in what follows we take $`\omega _B.004`$ and $`\omega _C0.00004`$.

The function $`z^{}(s)`$ is the decreasing function of the center-of-mass energy. It is tabulated for the LEP energies in Table 2. The corresponding values of the maximized function $`F`$ are within the interval $`0.960<F<0.966`$.

Since $`A_0(s,z^{})<0`$, $`B_0(s,z^{})<0`$ and $`C_{00}(s,z^{})<0`$, the observable

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _l(z^{})=\left[A_0(s,z^{})+\zeta B_0(s,z^{})\right]ϵ_0+C_{00}(s,z^{})ϵ_0^2$$
(7)
is negative and the same for the all types of the SM charged leptons with the accuracy 2–4%. This observable selects the model-independent signal of the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ boson in the processes $`e^+e^{}l^+l^{}`$.

## 4 Data fit and Conclusions

To search for the model-independent $`Z^{}`$ signals we will analyze the introduced observable $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _l(z^{})`$ on the base of the LEP data set. In the lower order in $`m_Z^{}^2`$ the observable (7) depends on the one parameter, $`ϵ_0`$,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _l^{\mathrm{th}}(z^{})=A_0(s,z^{})ϵ_0+C_{00}(s,z^{})ϵ_0^2,$$
(8)
which can be fitted from the experimental values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _l(z^{})`$. This approach has the following advantages:

1. All the LEP data for the lepton processes $`e^+e^{}l^+l^{}`$ can be incorporated to obtain the limits on the same flavour-independent scale.
2. The sign of the fitted parameter ($`ϵ_0>0`$) is the characteristic feature of the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ signal.

The LEP data for the total cross-sections and the forward-backward asymmetries  are converted to the experimental values of the observable $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _l(z^{})`$ with the corresponding errors $`\delta \sigma _l(z^{})`$ for each LEP energy by means of the following relations:

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _l(z^{})`$ $`=`$ $`\left[A_l^{FB}\left(1z^2\right){\displaystyle \frac{z^{}}{4}}\left(3+z^2\right)\right]\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _l^T`$
$`+\left(1z^2\right)\sigma _{l,\mathrm{SM}}^T\mathrm{\Delta }A_l^{FB},`$
$`\delta \sigma _l(z^{})^2`$ $`=`$ $`\left[A_l^{FB}\left(1z^2\right){\displaystyle \frac{z^{}}{4}}\left(3+z^2\right)\right]^2(\delta \sigma _l^T)^2`$ (9)
$`+\left[\left(1z^2\right)\sigma _{l,\mathrm{SM}}^T\right]^2(\delta A_l^{FB})^2.`$
The results are given in Table 2 and Figs. 12.

As it is seen, all the values of the observable are no more than one standard deviation from the SM value $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _l(z^{})=0`$ except for the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _\mu `$ at 161 GeV and three points at 161, 172 and 196 GeV corresponding to the $`e^+e^{}\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ process. These points reflect the significant dispersion of the measurements at $`\sqrt{s}<183`$ GeV. As it is also seen from Figs. 12, the measurements for the scattering into $`\mu `$ pairs have a higher level of precision. Thus, in what follows we will use two sets of data: 12 points for the $`e^+e^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ process and the full data set including 24 points for $`\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ and $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ in the final state.

The central value of the fitted parameter $`ϵ_0`$ is obtained as the result of minimization of the $`\chi ^2`$-function:

$$\chi ^2(ϵ_0)=\underset{n}{}\frac{\left[\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _{l,n}^{\mathrm{ex}}(z^{})\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _l^{\mathrm{th}}(z^{})\right]^2}{\delta \sigma _{l,n}^{\mathrm{ex}}(z^{})^2},$$
(10)
where the sum runs over the experimental points entering the data set chosen.

The $`1\sigma `$ confidence level interval $`(b_1,b_2)`$ for the fitted parameter is derived by means of the likelihood function $`(ϵ_0)\mathrm{exp}[\chi ^2(ϵ_0)/2]`$. It is determined by the equations:

$$_{b_1}^{b_2}(ϵ^{})𝑑ϵ^{}=0.68,(b_1)=(b_2).$$
(11)
To compare our results with those of Ref.  we introduce the contact interaction scale

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^2=4m_Z^2ϵ_0^1.$$
(12)
This normalization of contact couplings is admitted in Ref. . We use the log-likelihood method to determine a one sided lower limit on the scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ at the 95% confidence level. It is derived by the integration of the likelihood function over the physically allowed region $`ϵ_0>0`$. The exact definition is

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }=2m_Z(ϵ^{})^{1/2},_0^ϵ^{}(ϵ^{})𝑑ϵ^{}=0.95_0^{\mathrm{}}(ϵ^{})𝑑ϵ^{}.$$
(13)
We also introduce the probability of the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ signal as the integral of the likelihood function over the positive values of $`ϵ_0`$:

$$P=_0^{\mathrm{}}L(ϵ^{})𝑑ϵ^{}.$$
(14)
As it was mentioned above, we choose two different sets of data to fit the parameter $`ϵ_0`$. The first one includes $`e^{}e^+\mu ^{}\mu ^+`$ scattering data (12 points), whereas the second set includes both $`e^{}e^+\mu ^{}\mu ^+`$ and $`e^{}e^+\tau ^{}\tau ^+`$ data (24 measurements). In Table 3 we show the fitted values of $`ϵ_0`$ with their 68% confidence level uncertainties, the 95% confidence level lower limit on the scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, and the total probability of the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ signal.

As it is seen, all the data sets lead to the comparable fitted values of $`ϵ_0`$ with the nearly equal uncertainties. All the central values, $`\overline{ϵ}_0`$, have the sign compatible with the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ signal. The more precise data corresponding to the scattering into $`\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ pairs demonstrate the largest positive mean value of $`ϵ_0`$. This value is at one standard deviation from the SM prediction $`\overline{ϵ}_0=0`$.

Taking into account the data for $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ final states decreases the central value of $`ϵ_0`$ but does not affect essentially the uncertainty of the result. The corresponding fitted value is no more than one standard deviation.

Thus, the fitted central values $`\overline{ϵ}_0`$ witness to the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ existence. The signal is at one standard deviation for the $`e^{}e^+\mu ^{}\mu ^+`$ data. No signal is found at the $`1\sigma `$ confidence level for the full lepton data set.

In fact, the fitted value of the contact coupling $`ϵ_0`$ originates from the leading-order term in the inverse $`Z^{}`$ mass contributing to the observable (7). The analysis of the higher-order terms allows to estimate the constraints on the $`Z^{}`$ mass alone. Substituting $`ϵ_0`$ in Eq. (7) by its fitted central value from Table 3, $`\overline{ϵ}_0`$, one obtains the expression

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _l(z^{})=\left[A_0(s,z^{})+\zeta B_0(s,z^{})\right]\overline{ϵ}_0+C_{00}(s,z^{})\overline{ϵ}_0^2,$$
(15)
which depends on the parameter $`\zeta =m_Z^2/m_Z^{}^2`$.

The central value of $`\zeta `$ and the $`1\sigma `$ confidence interval can be computed in a way as those for $`ϵ_0`$. The results are also given in Table 3.

Being governed by the next-to-leading contributions in $`m_Z^{}^2`$, the fitted values of $`\zeta `$ are characterized by significant errors. The $`\mu \mu `$ data set gives the central value which corresponds to $`m_Z^{}1.13`$ TeV, whereas the full lepton data set leads to the unphysical central value of $`\zeta `$. Of course, the derived constraints on $`\zeta `$ are rather an illustration of the possibility to fit the $`Z^{}`$ mass alone because the higher-order terms in $`m_Z^{}^2`$ have to be accounted for simultaneously with the loop corrections to the factors $`A_0`$, $`B_0`$ and $`C_{00}`$ in Eq. (7). So, the analysis of the terms $`m_Z^{}^4`$ requires to compute $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _l(z^{})`$ in the improved Born approximation, which is the subject for separate investigations. The important possibility to improve accuracy is to use the data on the differential cross sections, when the combined data on them will be completed. With these data taken into consideration the observable $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _l(z^{})`$ can be calculated directly from the definition Eq. (3). In this case the uncertainties have to decrease. We believe that all these stages of the improvement of the data treating will make the situation with the $`Z^{}`$ signals more transparent.

As it was shown, the characteristic signal of the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ boson is concerned with the coupling to axial-vector currents. In this regard, let us turn again to the helicity ‘models’ of Ref.  and compare our results with the fit for the AA case. As it follows from the present analysis, this model is sensitive mainly to the signals of the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ boson. Of course, the parameters $`ϵ`$ in Ref.  and $`ϵ_0`$ in Eq. (3) are not the same quantity. First, they are normalized by different factors and related as $`ϵ=ϵ_0m_Z^2/4`$. Second, as we already noted, in the AA model the $`Z^{}`$ couplings to the vector fermion currents are set to zero, therefore it is able to describe only some particular case of the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ boson. Moreover, in this model both the positive and the negative values of $`ϵ`$ are considered, whereas in our approach only the positive $`ϵ_0`$ values (which correspond to the negative $`ϵ`$) are permissible. As the value of the four-fermion contact coupling in the AA model is dependent on the lepton flavor, the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ induces the axial-vector coupling which is universal for all lepton types. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that the fitted value of $`ϵ`$ in the AA model for the $`\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ final states ($`0.0025_{0.0023}^{+0.0018}\text{ TeV}^2`$) as well as the value derived under the assumption of the lepton universality ($`0.0018_{0.0019}^{+0.0016}\text{ TeV}^2`$) are similar to our results which correspond to $`ϵ=0.0014_{0.0014}^{+0.0014}\text{ TeV}^2`$ and $`ϵ=0.0009_{0.0011}^{+0.0011}\text{ TeV}^2`$, respectively. Thus, the signs of the central values in the AA model agree with our results, whereas the uncertainties are of the same order. From the carried out analysis it follows that the AA model is mainly responsible for signals of the Abelian $`Z^{}`$ gauge boson although a lot of details concerning its interactions is not accounted for within this fit.

The $`Z^{}`$ boson mass is related to the contact interaction scale $`ϵ_0`$ by Eq. (3). If the $`Z^{}`$ boson couples to the SM particles with a strength comparable with the electroweak forces $`\stackrel{~}{g}g`$, the central values of $`\overline{ϵ}_0`$ correspond to the masses of order 3–4 TeV, whereas the lower limit on $`m_Z^{}`$ is about 1.5–1.7 TeV. Thus, although the $`Z^{}`$ boson is not detected at LEP, it could be light enough to be discovered at LHC.

## 5 Acknowledgement

A.G. thanks D.Kazakov, S.Mikhailov and O.Teryaev for fruitful discussions and the JINR for its hospitality while this work was being completed.


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# The MINOS Light Injection Calibration System

## 1 MINOS overview

The MINOS experiment  will investigate the phenomenon of neutrino oscillations  by sending a beam of muon neutrinos 735 km through the Earth from the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), near Chicago, to a detector in the Soudan Underground Mine State Park in northern Minnesota. The experiment uses three detectors:

1. The Near Detector (ND) at FNAL. This will determine the characteristics of the neutrino beam before it begins its journey. Only neutrino events and cosmic ray muons are measured here; there is no “test beam” available.
2. The Far Detector (FD), situated 713 m underground in the Soudan mine, where the neutrino beam emerges from the Earth. Like the near detector, this measures only neutrino events and cosmic ray muons.
3. The Calibration Detector (CD) at CERN is a small detector, similar in structure to both near and far detectors, that is being exposed to particle beams at CERN to study its response to electrons, muons and hadrons of known energies.

## 2 MINOS detectors

The MINOS far detector is an 8 m wide octagonal tracking calorimeter, consisting of 486 layers of one-inch-thick steel interleaved with scintillator, giving a total mass of 5.4 kilotons. It has a toroidal magnetic field of strength approximately 1.3 T.

Each plane of scintillator consists of 192 strips, each 4 cm wide and 1 cm thick with a co-extruded TiO2 cladding to maximise internal reflection. Light from these strips is wavelength-shifted from blue to green and carried within acrylic fibres  to Hamamatsu  multi-anode photomultiplier tubes situated around the edge of the detector. Scintillator strips are in orthogonal directions in alternate planes. This gives a 3D readout with an energy resolution $`\sigma /E`$ of approximately $`23\%/\sqrt{E}`$ for electromagnetic showers and $`55\%/\sqrt{E}`$ for hadronic showers. The magnetic field allows measurement of the muon momentum by curvature (14% resolution for a 10 GeV muon) as well as by range for stopping muons (giving approximately 6% resolution).

### 2.1 Calorimeter energy calibration

In order to measure the neutrino mixing parameters $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}^2(2\theta )`$ precisely, the energy response of the detectors has to be calibrated to within a few percent. The goal is a 5% absolute measurement of the energy in each detector, and consistency to within 2% between the near and far detectors. This is carried out in several stages :

* A light-injection calibration system is required to monitor, and to compensate for, changes in amplification (and non-linearity) of the photomultiplier tubes used in the detectors. The light-injection system is the principal subject of this paper.
* Cosmic-ray muons are used to perform the strip-to-strip calibration within each detector, and the relative calibration between the near and far detectors . The strip-to-strip calibrations do not require a high statistical precision ($`10\%`$ per strip per month), as both muon tracks and hadronic showers contain many strips. There are expected to be about 530 cosmic ray hits/strip/month in the far detector, giving an accuracy of 2.4% per strip per month, and about 25,000 hits/strip/month in the near detector, giving an accuracy there of 0.3%/strip/month.

Stopping muons can be used to provide the relative calibration of near to far detectors. There are estimated to be 700 stopping muons per day in the far detector, and two orders of magnitude more than this in the near detector. This yields a 1% statistical precision for the near-far detector calibration each day.
* A study to compare the energy deposition by muons with that from hadrons and hadronic showers is being carried out with the calibration detector in a charged-particle test beam at CERN.

### 2.2 Optical readout

The MINOS readout chain is illustrated schematically in Fig. 1. A 1.2 mm Kuraray Y11 wavelength-shifting fibre  lies in a groove along the length of each scintillator strip. Between 16 and 28 such strips are enclosed in a light-tight aluminium case, known as a module. There are eight modules in a full plane.

The wavelength-shifting fibres run to a connector at the end of the aluminium case. Clear fibres  then carry the light to boxes containing Hamamatsu multi-anode photomultiplier tubes.

For the far detector, Hamamatsu M16 photomultipliers  are used (see Fig. 2), with fibres from eight separate scintillator strips feeding each PMT pixel. This “optical multiplexing”, which provides a substantial saving in the cost of readout electronics, is possible because the event rate at the far detector is so low that there will never be more than one event in the detector at any one time. The typical width of a shower event in MINOS is 50 cm, so the 1 m spacing between strips illuminating a single pixel is appropriate. The multiplexing pattern is slightly different on each side of the detector in order to aid deconvolution.

The far-detector readout electronics uses a modified version of the Viking VA chip  made by IDE AS of Norway . This is an integrated circuit containing 32 channels of shaping amplifiers and track-and-hold circuitry. When triggered, each channel is digitised in turn. The data are then transferred to VME readout control crates, with single-board computers running the VxWorks real-time operating system.

Instantaneous event rates in the near detector will be $`5\times 10^5`$ higher than in the far detector. The near detector therefore uses QIE  electronics, a high-speed, multi-ranging ADC system with no dead time. Its principal difference from the far detector electronics is that it divides input signals into 19 ns time buckets, and digitises each separately. These separate digitisations are recombined during the event-building process. The light-injection calibration system incorporates an external trigger that can be used to produce optical pulses at different starting positions within the 19 ns time bucket, in order to investigate any possible systematic differences in response at the bucket boundaries.

The near detector is not optically multiplexed (although its muon spectrometer section is electronically multiplexed). It uses Hamamatsu M64 (64-anode) photomultiplier tubes, and has a total of 12,000 readout channels. Unlike the far detector, only one end of each strip is read out: the other end is terminated with a reflector to maximise the detected light. The calibration detector will use both near and far detector readout systems, in order to carry out a systematic comparison of the responses of each.

## 3 Light-injection system overview

The light-injection system is based upon pulsed blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs). A rack-mounted box, known as a “pulser box”, contains a set of 20 LEDs, each of which has an optical fan-out allowing it to illuminate multiple individual fibres. These fibres carry light to a set of optical connectors on the back panel of the pulser box.

From the pulser box, optical fibres carry the light to the outer edges of the MINOS detector. A set of highly-reflective cavities situated there – the “light-injection modules” – allows the blue LED light to illuminate the green wavelength-shifting fibres, thus producing pulses of light that mimic the signals from the scintillator.

The intensity of injected light is monitored by PIN photodiodes that are read out simultaneously with the PMTs.

In the following sections, the requirements of and constraints upon the light-injection system are discussed, after which each component of the system is examined in detail.

## 4 Light-injection system requirements

### 4.1 Aims

The purpose of the light injection system is fourfold:

1. Mapping the gain curve. The response of the photomultiplier tubes becomes non-linear at light levels exceeding about 100 photoelectrons . The light injection system is designed to be able to characterise the response of every optical readout channel on a regular basis (up to once per month in routine operation).
2. Monitoring short-term gain drifts. The gain of a photomultiplier tube is sensitive to small changes in temperature and in applied high voltage. By injecting light at a single point on the gain curve on an hourly basis, any resulting changes in gain can be monitored closely and compensated for.
3. Evaluating PMT gain. Pulsing at very low light levels allows the acquisition of single photoelectron spectra for each channel, from which the gain can easily be calculated.
4. Confirming optical path integrity. The light injection system provides a quick and thorough check to ensure that no fibres are broken.

### 4.2 Design constraints

A number of constraints were imposed upon the design of the light injection system:

1. The amount of light applied to any pixels on a given PMT that are illuminated simultaneously should differ by no more than a factor of two. This helps to avoid excessive non-linearities and possible problems from crosstalk when injecting light towards the top end of the dynamic range. It is also useful in reducing the amount of data required in order to cover the dynamic range for all pixels, as one does not then have dimly and brightly illuminated pixels that require separate calibration operations at different levels of LED brightness.
2. The M16s used on the far detector are multiplexed, with eight fibres carrying light to each pixel. No two fibres on any pixel may be illuminated simultaneously. Adjacent pixels should also be avoided if possible, to minimise crosstalk problems.
3. The dynamic range of light injected must range from a fraction of a photoelectron up to several hundred photoelectrons on all pixels. Furthermore, this dynamic range should be covered with a step size of the order of one photoelectron.
4. The relative levels of light injected must be measured by a separate device having a response that is linear to 1%, in order to characterise the non-linear response of the PMTs. PIN photodiodes were selected for this purpose.
5. The response of the PIN photodiodes must be stable to within 1% over the timescale of a month.
6. The relative arrival times of the optical pulses at each PMT must be stable to within approximately a nanosecond.

## 5 Light-emitting diodes

### 5.1 LEDs vs. lasers

Previous experiments needing light-injection calibration of the type required for MINOS have often used scintillator excited by pulsed lasers, with a variety of neutral-density filters to provide the required dynamic range in light intensity. The development over recent years of the so-called “ultra-bright” blue LEDs enabled a simpler, solid-state system to be considered. Lasers retain three advantages: they are several orders of magnitude brighter than even the brightest LEDs; the pulses are extremely fast, which can better mimic the pulses produced by the passage of charged particles through scintillator; and the spectrum of light produced by the scintillator is almost identical for data and for calibration pulses. For MINOS, however, these possible benefits of lasers were outweighed by the many other advantages of LEDs. LEDs exhibit minimal pulse-to-pulse fluctuations in intensity, so the response of the PMT is dominated entirely by photoelectron statistics. In an LED-based system, there are no moving parts to wear out or break, so the system is appropriately robust for long-term remote operation. In addition, there are no laser parts requiring regular replacement, servicing or gas supplies; the light intensity can be changed by software, instead of relying upon neutral-density filters which may become burned (and therefore non-linear) and which also can only be adjusted slowly; and high repetition rates are possible, so calibration can be carried out quickly. The temporal profile of the optical pulse can be changed to some extent, to explore any effects thereof. Finally, the LED system costs less than a comparable laser-based system. A major factor driving the cost difference is within the fibre plant: blue LED light can propagate down polymer fibre which has a very high absorption at the UV wavelengths generally produced by lasers.

The LEDs used in the pulser system are wide-angle Hewlett-Packard HLMP-CB30 . Initial development work had been done with the LEDs made by Nichia Chemical Industries ; the change to the HP LED was forced as Nichia altered the specification of their LED to one having a much slower response, which made the pulses unacceptably long.

### 5.2 Maximum current

A nominal maximum current specified by the manufacturer of 100 mA is determined by heating effects, which can damage the plastic lens in which the LED is set; however, this is not a problem with the extremely low duty cycle in the MINOS pulser circuit (some tens of nanoseconds per millisecond), and tests showed no sign of damage with currents as high as 500 mA. The MINOS pulser circuit uses a maximum current of 200 mA; above this, the visible light output begins to saturate, and the quality of the pulse shape deteriorates.

### 5.3 Lifetime

None of the LEDs tested have ever reached the limit of their lifetime. In one instance, the tests included pulses equivalent to 2,000 years of normal MINOS operation, with no adverse effects observed.

### 5.4 Comparison of spectra

Fig. 3 shows a comparison of the spectra of light emitted from the blue LED with light from an excited piece of MINOS scintillator . The spectra are quite different. When the light is absorbed and re-emitted by the wavelength-shifting fibre, however, the spectra are far better matched, as shown in Fig. 4. The measurement was made using a 300 mm piece of WLS fibre, half of which was glued into a groove in a 150 mm length of MINOS scintillator in the usual manner. The laser light was injected approximately halfway along the scintillator; the LED illuminated the WLS fibre at a point adjacent to the end of the scintillator (and thus approximately halfway along the WLS fibre). Light from the end of the WLS fibre was transported through a quartz fibre to a monochromator and calibrated photomultiplier tube. In MINOS, the situation will be slightly different: most signal pulses will have a much longer path through the green fibre, where self-absorption reduces the short-wavelength component of the light , whereas the blue LED light will be absorbed at the very end of the green fibre. Nonetheless, the similarity of the spectra eliminates any concerns about wavelength-dependent ageing of the photocathode (which, in any case, should occur on a timescale much longer than the one-month period over which the light-injection system is required to monitor gain stability).

### 5.5 Pulse shape

A short, intense pulse of light in a PMT does not necessarily yield the same integrated charge as an identical amount of light delivered over a longer time, and so it is important that the shape of the optical pulse arriving at the photocathode from light injection should be similar to that from the detection of charged particles.

The LEDs have a risetime of $``$ 3-10 ns, depending upon pulse height. The fluorescence time of the WLS fibres is typically 7-8 ns, and is specified to be less than 10 ns ; the risetime of the signal pulses also increases by $``$ 0.7 ns per metre of WLS fibre . Fig. 5 shows the time-averaged shapes of a series of optical pulses from the WLS fibres excited by a blue LED and by scintillator that has itself been stimulated by a nitrogen laser . In each case, the pulses liberated about four photoelectrons from the photocathode: this is approximately the signal size that we would expect from each end of a MINOS far-detector scintillator strip following the passage of a minimum-ionising particle through its centre. The pulse shapes are almost identical in the two cases, and they are dominated by the response of the WLS fibre. In general, the risetime of the LED has little effect upon the overall pulse shape.

### 5.6 Stability

The short-term pulse-to-pulse variation of an LED was measured by a PIN photodiode circuit with amplifier and a digital oscilloscope. The standard deviation of the pulse height distribution, which is actually dominated by electronics noise from the measurement circuit, was found to be 1.1% of the mean value. Therefore, when the response of the PMT to these optical pulses is measured, the spread in measured light levels is dominated entirely by photoelectron counting statistics; there is no need to account for LED variations on a pulse-by-pulse basis.

However, the LED light output does suffer occasional jumps (typically once every few weeks), and these can sometimes amount to changes of several percent. An independent measurement of light intensity is therefore needed to monitor the output of the LED, and a PIN photodiode was chosen for this purpose.

## 6 PIN photodiodes

The PIN photodiode used to monitor the relative light output from the LEDs is the Hamamatsu S5971 . This was chosen primarily because it offers a fast response while still having a large enough surface area to accommodate the 1.0 mm diameter light-distribution fibres. Some characteristics are listed in Table 1.

### 6.1 Stability

The light injection system is required to be stable as it tracks PMT gain changes over a period of about a month, during which time sufficient numbers of cosmic-ray muons will be detected to calibrate the detector. The stability was tested by pulsing an LED continuously over a period of two months, and monitoring its output several times per second with a pair of PIN photodiodes. After integration and shaping, these were read out by a digital oscilloscope (Fig. 6).

The results of the stability test are shown in Fig. 7. Each point in the figure is an average of a thousand consecutive readings: this is representative of the averaging that will take place during the MINOS calibration. For clarity, only one data point in sixteen is plotted. Over the first ten days, the signal from PIN 1 gradually decreased; this is thought to be caused by the fibre settling slightly in its connector. The sudden jump in LED brightness at day 13 is unexplained, as is its instability in days 25-26; but the intensity changes were recorded by both PIN photodiodes, and the ratio of PIN outputs remained constant. A weekend power cut left the system off for an extended period in days 36-38; when restarted, the LED output returned to its original value. The feature at 46 days occurred when the apparatus was accidently mechanically disturbed—a sharp deviation in one PIN’s signal is again apparent, followed by a slow return to roughly the previous level.

Although the light output of the LED changed by a few percent during the test period (e.g. the step changes at days 13 and 37), the ratio between the individual PIN readings remained constant to within about 0.5% over a period of two months: this is well within the MINOS stability specification.

### 6.2 Linearity

The PIN photodiode must provide a scale that varies linearly with applied light, in order to calibrate the non-linearities of the PMT. The linearity of the PIN photodiode/amplifier system was measured by comparing the signal from a pulsed LED with the signal from the same LED, but with a neutral-density filter blocking most of the light. The amplified and shaped output from the PIN photodiode was read out by a digital oscilloscope in peak-finding mode. Repeating this measurement for several different pulse heights spanning the range of operation of the system produced the linear response shown in Fig. 8. No evidence of non-linearity was observed.

The charge digitisation of the PIN photodiode pulse is also required to be linear. A charge-injection system calibrates the ADC readout channels to an accuracy of 1%, thus ensuring that the PIN photodiode ADC scale is indeed proportional to the light input.

### 6.3 Readout

In the far detector, two PIN photodiodes are mounted on each of the front-end readout cards. The current pulses produced by the PIN photodiodes are integrated and amplified, producing peak voltages that are a.c. coupled to the VA chips to achieve the required current injection. The VA chip, whose primary purpose is to read out PMT pulses, requires a PMT dynode signal to trigger its readout. The optical wiring ensures that the PMT that triggers the readout of a given PIN photodiode will always be illuminated by the same LED as the PIN photodiode in question. Each LED is in fact served by two PIN photodiodes, mounted on separate front-end readout cards; this allows one readout card to be replaced (to change a PMT or to replace an amplifier) whilst the LED calibration is held by the other PIN photodiode, which remains undisturbed.

In the near detector, the phototubes are read out by QIE electronics, which cannot be used to trigger the PIN readout. Instead, the readout of the PIN photodiodes is triggered by the presence of a signal on the dynode of a separate PMT (discussed in Section 7 below).

The optical fan-out from the LEDs is designed to deliver more light to the PIN photodiode than to the PMT pixels, in order to accommodate the relatively low sensitivity of the PIN. In this way the full dynamic range of the signals is well matched between PIN and PMT. The signal-to-noise ratio of the PIN photodiode circuit is approximately 4000:1 at full scale.

## 7 Trigger PMT

At times, it will be necessary to take spectra of the PMT response at the single-photoelectron level. In a significant fraction of events no signal will then be seen in the PMT, and consequently the PIN photodiode will not be read out. In order to count these events properly, and in order to provide a distinctive identification to all light-injection events, each pulser box has an additional LED that emits a consistently bright flash with each pulse, regardless of the brightness of the primary LED pulse. Light from this additional LED is carried to a dedicated M16 PMT – the trigger PMT – which is read out in the usual way, thus inserting a unique identifier in the data of each light-injection event. In the near detector the trigger PMT serves an additional function, in that its dynode signal forces the readout of all PIN photodiodes.

## 8 Mechanical design

### 8.1 Pulser boxes

Each pulser box is 21 inches high, and fits in a standard 19-inch rack. It is divided by a bulkhead wall into two compartments: one, at the front of the box, is for electronics; the other is for fibre optics. The 20 LEDs are mounted on two circuit boards, supported on trays in the electronics compartment. A controller board, containing the microprocessor and an RS232 interface, connects the two LED driver boards.

The LEDs overhang the ends of their circuit boards and pass through holes in the bulkhead into optical fan-outs known as cones. Each cone has a set of 71 optical fibres (including spares and dedicated, centrally-located fibres to carry light to PIN photodiodes). These fibres take the optical signals from the cones to four columns of 16 connectors on the back panel (Fig. 9) of the box; each back-panel connector holds 20 fibres – one from each cone. There are three additional 20-wide connectors on the back panel — two provide light to the PIN photodiodes (and so are fed by the dedicated PIN photodiode fibres), and the third is a spare. There is also a single-fibre connector carrying light to the trigger PMT.

Bundles of 20 fibres mounted externally to the box transport the light from each of the back-panel connectors to the 20 light-injection points on each side of each far-detector plane; this is illustrated in Figure 10. The optical routing in the near detector is identical, except that there are fewer light-injection points on each plane (eleven for fully instrumented planes, seven for partially instrumented planes, and on one side of the detector only). The calibration detector has just three light-injection points on each side of each of its 60 planes, and is thus served by six LEDs in a single pulser box.

### 8.2 Cones and ponytails

The basic design for the optical fan-out is a conical hole bored longitudinally through an aluminium cylinder, with the LED seated at the apex and the 71-fibre bundle attached at the base, as shown in Fig. 11.

The walls of the cone are lined with aluminised polyester (with a reflectivity greater than 99%) to maximise the intensity of light delivered to the fibres and to assist with the uniformity of illumination of the fibre bundle. The fibre bundle, or “ponytail”, is glued into a plastic collar which is attached to the cone. During assembly, the ends of the fibres are positioned precisely within the collar by means of a plastic disc with holes drilled in it, known as a “tea-strainer”. The surface of this is fly-cut with a diamond-tipped tool.

Three fibres (including one spare) are designated to serve the PIN photodiodes. These are placed in the centre of the fibre bundle. To provide more light, these fibres are extended towards the LED, and are encased in a rigid plastic tube for support (see Fig. 11). This also assists in reducing the non-uniformity of illumination of the light-injection fibres, as the PIN photodiode fibres occupy the area of brightest illumination. Fig. 12 shows the uniformity of illumination of a typical fibre tea-strainer. In this example, the RMS deviation is approximately 15% of the mean value, and the ratio of maximum to minimum intensities is 2.28. On later production models the uniformity improved somewhat, with the ratio of maximum to minimum intensities often lying below 2.0.

The PIN photodiode fibres are significantly longer than all other fibres in the ponytail (6 m vs. 0.8 m). This minimises the differences in relative arrival times of the optical pulses at the PIN photodiodes and at the PMT photocathodes, by compensating for the different optical path lengths: this ensures in turn that the amplified and shaped pulse from the PIN photodiode readout circuit is sampled and digitised at its peak.

A disassembled cone and collar are shown in Fig. 13.

### 8.3 Optical fibre

The optical fibre used has a 1 mm diameter core of polymethyl methacrylate, with a fluorinated polymer cladding, and was manufactured by Mitsubishi Corp. . The attenuation at 473 nm (the wavelength of the blue LEDs) is approximately 0.08 dB/m. The fibre is jacketed with 2.2 mm diameter opaque black PVC that has a UL-VW1  flame-resistance rating, a fire-safety requirement.

### 8.4 Optical connectors

The multi-fibre connectors, both at the rear of the pulser box and on the mating ends of the external fibre bundles, are made of plastic. Once the fibres have been glued into place, the connectors are fly-cut with a diamond-tipped tool: this provides extremely good optical transmission, of up to 90% for each connector pair, without damaging the fibres and with a considerable saving in manpower over a hand-polishing process. The design for these connectors was adapted from that for the MINOS optical readout connectors.

Individual fibre ends in the light-injection system are all terminated with an H19 metal connector from OMC  (for those carrying light to the PIN photodiodes) or a custom-made, slightly larger variant thereof known as the CLRC01 (for those plugged into the light-injection points on the detector). After gluing and light crimping into the connector, these fibre ends are hand-polished to optimise transmission.

## 9 Light injection modules

At each end of the scintillator modules, there is a manifold (Fig. 14) that draws the green WLS fibres from the scintillator strips together into a multi-fibre connector. This is the only point of access to the green fibres, and it is here that the LED light enters the optical readout chain. The space is tightly constrained — there is a plane of steel adjacent to the scintillator module on one side, and another just 1 cm away on the other side. This does not allow room for the clear optical fibres carrying LED light to arrive transversely to the planes: instead, they are brought in parallel to the readout fibres. The light illuminates a small ($``$5 cm3) compartment having diffusely-reflecting walls, across the top of which runs a “curtain” of eight or ten WLS fibres. This is illustrated in Fig. 15. The WLS fibres absorb the blue LED light, which is then re-emitted isotropically in the green part of the spectrum. Some of this green light is trapped in the fibre, and propagates in both directions towards the PMTs at either side of the far detector.

The light-injection modules (LIMs; see Fig. 16) containing the compartments (“ashtrays”) in which the absorption takes place are made from injection-moulded black plastic , and are mounted on the underside of each detector module, thus forming part of the manifold cover (see Fig. 14). The 16- and 20-wide scintillator modules have two ashtrays in each LIM, and the wider modules have three. A complete MINOS far-detector plane contains 192 scintillator strips, whose green fibres are divided amongst a total of 20 ashtrays. Each ashtray is supplied with the blue light from a single plastic fibre, derived ultimately from one of the 20 LEDs in a pulser box. Each of the LEDs illuminates the same ashtray in up to 64 planes.

As discussed earlier, the total amount of light illuminating each of the wavelength-shifting fibres should be as uniform as possible. The central position of the light-injection fibre in each ashtray results in a stronger illumination of the fibres at the centre than at the edges of the ashtray. This tendency is countered to some extent by incorporating a curved reflecting back, as shown in Fig. 16, which both shades a portion of the central fibres and reflects more light towards the edges than would a flat back. The uniformity of response across the ashtray is shown in Fig. 17. The walls of each ashtray are coated with a highly reflective $`\mathrm{TiO}_2`$-based paint (Bicron BC625).

## 10 Optical routing constraints

The far detector is eight-fold optically multiplexed. It is essential that only one fibre is illuminated at any one time on any given pixel. As eight or ten adjacent fibres are illuminated simultaneously in an ashtray, this places a constraint on the multiplexing pattern used — any scheme where adjacent strips are mapped to the same pixel is not permissible.

It is also desirable to avoid simultaneous pulsing of adjacent PMT pixels, in order to mitigate the effects of crosstalk . This is the reason for only illuminating up to 10 WLS fibres (one ashtray) at any one time in any given plane. Arranging the fibres from sequential scintillator strips on alternate M16 pixels ensures that the pixels are illuminated in a chessboard pattern, as in Fig. 18, with diagonal rather than edge-adjacent pixels being illuminated simultaneously. The mapping is staggered on one side of the plane so that a hit can be located in the plane by using both ends of the readout.

These considerations lead to a simple algorithm for the optical wiring of the pulser boxes. Each connector at the back of the pulser box contains one fibre from each of the 20 LEDs, and the 20 fibres from each such connector feed the 20 ashtrays of one end of a single plane. Thus, any given LED illuminates up to ten green fibres on each of 64 planes.

## 11 Electronics

The LED pulser offers the ability to change both the height and the width of the pulse electronically, by varying the current pulse that is applied to the LED. Each pulser box contains up to 20 LEDs, although in the near detector only 11 LEDs are used. As discussed in Section 7, the controller card incorporates an additional “trigger” LED that pulses at a fixed intensity and which is used to flag light-injection events in the data stream.

### 11.1 Pulser control

The pulser box is controlled by a PIC16F877 microprocessor . It communicates with a control PC via ASCII commands over a serial RS232 link. To avoid a proliferation of different types of data-carrying cable running around the detector, the signals are carried over the detector Ethernet, and converted for the pulser box by an Ethernet-RS232 converter. In the standard mode of operation, the PC instructs the system to pulse a given LED a certain number of times (typically 1000) at a given height, width, and frequency (from 0.5 Hz to 1 kHz). The microprocessor then controls the actual pulsing. The pulser box is also supplied with an external trigger input, which forces a pulse of its current height/width setting in response to a TTL signal. This can be used in the near detector to investigate the effects of the timing of a pulse with respect to the 19 ns time buckets in the QIE electronics.

Fig. 19 shows the LED driver stage from the pulser box circuit. The applied voltage, which determines the pulse height, is controlled by a 10-bit DAC. When the signal at A goes high, the driver stage is turned on — voltage is applied to the 22 $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ resistor, and the current is shunted to ground via the left-hand FET. This occurs typically a microsecond before the actual pulse, to give the current time to stabilise. (This “bypass” current is turned off between each pulse in order to avoid excessive heating.) When the signal at B goes low, current flows through the LED, which emits light. A short time later, signal C goes high, and the current is shunted to ground via the right-hand FET; the LED is then turned off. The pulse width is determined by the delay between B turning off and C turning on; this is controlled by a programmable delay line, giving a current pulse width of 15 to 36 ns in 3 ns steps. The light pulses delivered to the phototube produce signals ranging from a fraction of a photoelectron up to about 500 photoelectrons.

## 12 Performance

During the summer of 2001, the MINOS calibration detector was placed in a charged-particle test beam at CERN. One of its functions was to confirm that the light-injection system could compensate for changing PMT gains at the 1% level. The calibration detector was fully equipped with MINOS readout electronics.

The gain curves of the PMTs were produced by injecting light at ten different levels, and plotting the response of the PMTs as a function of the PIN photodiode output. Figure 20 shows two such plots, labelled “Old Gain Curve” and “New Gain Curve”, measuring the same channel at different times. Each point represents the mean $`\mu `$ of 2000 optical pulses. The gain in general was observed to drift only slowly (less than 2% over two months); but at one point the voltage supplied to the PMTs was increased, resulting in the dramatic difference between the two gain curves shown here.

Drift in gain is monitored by looking at specific points on the gain curve on a regular (typically hourly) basis, as discussed in Section 4.1 above. These points are used to calculate a multiplicative factor for each channel that is applied to the entire gain curve so as to mimic the time-evolution of the gain. The underlying assumption is that the actual shape of the gain curve does not change on a short timescale. Figure 20 includes the recalculated gain-curve points.

The performance of the light-injection system can therefore be tested by selecting different points on the gain curves, and comparing the mean ADC for a given light input with that predicted from the drift-point calculation. The results of this procedure are shown in Figure 21. The upper histogram shows the relative difference between the means of measured points on separate gain curves, i.e. (ADC(0)-ADC($`t`$))/ADC(0), and the lower histogram shows the relative difference between the measured and corrected points, i.e. (ADC(0)corr-ADC($`t`$))/ADC(0)corr. This technique is independent of any changes in light output from the LEDs; any change in gain of the PIN photodiodes would appear as an offset from zero of the lower histogram. The width of the lower histogram is limited by photoelectron counting statistics at each data point: the ultimate precision achievable by the system is not yet completely determined, but the figure demonstrates that the calibration procedure has corrected the gain changes to within the 1% specification required by MINOS.

## 13 Conclusion

A light-injection system has been developed to assist in the calibration of the MINOS detectors. Based upon blue LEDs, with PIN photodiodes to monitor relative intensities, the system is able to measure non-linearities in PMT response as well as measuring changes in gain at the 1% level on an hourly basis over timescales of a month or more.

## Acknowledgements

This work has been funded by the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council and the US Department of Energy. The authors would like to thank the other members of the MINOS collaboration for their support, and in particular Jim Musser and Karol Lang, both of whom have provided valuable criticism of the document, and the members of the scintillator, DAQ, electronics, and integration/installation groups for all of the time and effort spent in accommodating the needs of the light injection system. Jim Grozier gave generously of his own free time to carry out crucial laboratory tests at Sussex. The assistance of CERN and its PS staff with the test-beam experiments is gratefully acknowledged. The staff at OMC have also been most helpful. This work is based in part on the dissertation of P. Adamson, submitted to the University of Sussex in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the D.Phil. degree .


text:
# Fabrication of Nano-Scale Gaps in Integrated Circuits

## Abstract

Nano-size objects like metal clusters present an ideal system for the study of quantum phenomena and for constructing practical quantum devices. Integrating these small objects in a macroscopic circuit is, however, a difficult task. So far the nanoparticles have been contacted and addressed by highly sophisticated techniques which are not suitable for large scale integration in macroscopic circuits. We present an optical lithography method that allows for the fabrication of a network of electrodes which are separated by gaps of controlled nanometer size. The main idea is to control the gap size with subnanometer precision using a structure grown by molecular beam epitaxy.

Recently, there is growing interest in the study of the electrical properties of nano-size objects. In these small scale structures the energy associated with size quantization and the Coulomb energy are considerably enhanced and can exceed the thermal energy $`kT`$ at room temperature. Therefore, such systems are ideal for studying quantum phenomena and for constructing practical quantum devices. The single-electron transistor (SET) has emerged as an important experimental platform in both aspects. It consists of a nano-size metal island which is connected through two tunnel barriers to the leads. The SET also presents most of the problems that characterize device physics at this length scale: fabrication of macroscopic leads with a nanometer-size gap, definition of a nano-size island, positioning it between the leads and controlling the tunnel barriers with high precision. The fabrication of the leads has proven to be a particularly challenging task. It requires nano-scale resolution for defining the gap, and the ability to integrate the device in a highly connected and complex macroscopic circuit. A variety of solutions have been suggested to this issue, of which the majority are appropriate for contacting only a single device. These include using the tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope for contacting, electromigration, breaking thin wires , or metal deposition on electron-beam defined structures. Other techniques attempted to use a conducting DNA-based network to solve the connectivity issue. Recently logic circuits with carbon nanotube have been reported.

In this paper we present a method that allows us to fabricate a network of electrodes that are separated by gaps of controlled nanometer size using conventional optical lithography. The gap size is determined by the thickness of a molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) grown layer embedded in a sandwich structure. This layer is selectively etched and after metal evaporation a gap is formed exactly where the layer was removed. Controlled positioning of the nanoparticles between the electrodes is done by electrostatic trapping. We show that the device exhibits clear Coulomb blockade (CB) characteristics in the transport measurements and can function as an SET.

The sample fabrication is illustrated in Fig. 1 (a)-(d). A quantum-well (QW) structure is grown on a GaAs substrate by MBE. The thickness of the two undoped AlGaAs layers above and below the QW are 200 nm and 100 nm, respectively. The thickness of the embedded GaAs layer is varied between 5 to 10 nm in various samples. In the first step, 200 nm high mesa structures are defined by optical lithography and a standard wet-etching process such that the GaAs layer is exposed on the side of the mesa (Fig. 1 (a)). Next, the pattern of the electrodes is defined by optical lithography. On the exposed areas a few tens of nanometers of the GaAs layer (from the side) are removed by selective wet-etching  using citric acid and H2O2 (5:1), as shown in Fig. 1 (b). The selectivity of the etching between GaAs and AlGaAs is nominally 100:1, hence the width of the etched layer is the QW width. The electrodes are fabricated by thermally evaporating a thin film (5 to 15 nm) of PdAu from a direction perpendicular to the plane of the wafer surface such that a gap is formed exactly where the GaAs was removed (Fig. 1(c)). The size of the gap is determined by the crystal structure (which can be controlled with subnanometer precision), surface roughness of the etched AlGaAs/GaAs interface due to the selective etching (less than one nanometer for short etching times), and by the metal evaporation which can be controlled on the nm scale. We manage to fabricate gaps which are less than 5 nm wide and estimate the minimum gap size that can be achieved by our method to be about one to two nanometers. An important advantage of this method is that since the mesa structure and the electrode pattern are defined by optical lithography, it allows the simultaneous fabrication of many electrodes separated by nano-size gaps on the wafer surface (see illustration in Fig. 1 (f)).

To position the nanoparticles between the electrodes we use the method of electrostatic trapping : the electrodes are immersed in an aqueous or organic solution of Au clusters. The Au clusters can be chemically fabricated with controlled size in the range of 1 to 100 nm diameter. By applying a voltage between the electrodes a dipole moment is induced in the Au cluster and it is attracted to the point of strongest electric field, i.e. the gap, by dipole-dipole interaction. A series resistance, $`R_S`$ = 1 G$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, is integrated in the circuit such that when trapping occurs the voltage drops on that resistor and the device cannot trap more clusters. In this way only a single cluster is trapped in the gap. The setup is sketched in Fig. 1 (d). For trapping, we apply an AC voltage of 8 V at 50 kHz for a few seconds. AC voltage is used to increase the impedance of the liquid solvent and to be able to trap also charged particles. After trapping, the liquid is blown off with $`N_2`$.

In order to form tunnel barriers between the electrodes and the clusters, the electrodes can be covered with thiol molecules before the trapping. However, we find that if the cluster diameter is only slightly larger than the gap, a tunnel barrier can exist even for uncoated electrodes. This tunnel barrier could arise from organic molecules on the cluster surface that stabilize the Au clusters, or from contamination on the electrodes formed during the trapping process. We note, however, that the strength of this barrier is reasonably reproducible as evidenced by transport measurements. The geometry sketched in Fig. 1 (d) suggests that the contact of the trapped cluster to the lower electrode is better than to the upper one. This asymmetry in the contacts should lead to different tunnel resistances, which is indeed the case as we will see below.

A scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of a single trapped cluster between two metal electrodes is displayed in Fig. 2. In the center of the image we see the mesa edge, with the mesa plateau to the left, and the etched grove separating the electrodes in the vertical direction. The trapped cluster is seen below the center of the image. Two more clusters, which do not bridge the gap, can be observed at the right side of the scale bar. The gap size is slightly larger than 10 nm and the width of the electrodes is a few microns each. To enhance the visibility of the trapped cluster, clusters having a relatively large diameter of 60 nm are displayed.

Figure 3 shows an $`IV`$ curve measured on a trapped Au clusters with 10 nm diameter at 4.2 K. A clear CB behavior can be observed up to $`V_{bias}\pm 25`$ mV. For larger voltages, $`|V_{bias}|>25`$ mV, we observe a strong asymmetry in the $`IV`$ curve with respect to positive and negative voltage. For positive bias voltage we find a linear rise in current in the range of 25 mV$`<V_{bias}<`$65 mV, whereas for negative bias we observe a step-like feature at $`V_{bias}=25`$ mV, which then saturates in a linear slope. This asymmetric behavior has been discussed by Hanna and Tinkham  assuming different tunnel resistances to the electrodes, i.e. $`R_2>>R_1`$. They distinguished four different cases in a $`C_1/C_2Q_0`$ phase diagram, each with a qualitatively different onset in conduction. Here $`C_1`$ and $`C_2`$ are the capacitances of the trapped cluster to the electrodes and $`Q_0`$ is the residual fractional charge on the cluster. The solid line displayed in Fig. 3 corresponds to the case of $`C_1/C_21`$ and $`Q_0=0.24e`$. In order to fit our data , we used $`R_1=30`$ M$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, $`R_2=400`$ M$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ (which satisfies very well the assumption of $`R_2>>R_1`$,) and for the capacitances $`C_1=C_25`$ x $`10^{19}`$ F, and a stray capacitance to the electrodes of $`C_g=2.5`$ x $`10^{18}`$ F. The inset in Fig. 3 shows transport measurements of another sample at different temperatures, where a Au cluster with a diameter of 10 nm was trapped. At $`T=4.2`$ K we find the CB region to be slightly larger than in the previous sample. Clearly, also at higher temperatures $`T=77`$ K a non-linear behavior in the $`IV`$ curve can be observed. Measuring the $`IV`$ curve of a certain device at different times after the cooling reveals the abrupt occurrence of changes in the characteristics of the conduction onset and slight changes in the size of the Coulomb blockade region. This behavior was also observed by Klein and coworkers  and was attributed to changes in the local charge distribution in the vicinity of the cluster. Repeated warming and cooling of the device leads to similar effects.

An important question is how to apply a gate voltage to the trapped cluster in order to get true transistor functionality. This is not trivial and to the best of our knowledge, so far no gated device using metal clusters of nanometer size has been realized. The major problem is the screening of the gate voltage by the comparatively large electrodes in close vicinity to the small cluster. Our design provides a very elegant method to position a gate electrode only a few tens of nanometers away from the cluster. As illustrated in Fig. 1 (e), the GaAs layer, which has been used for the selective etching, can also be heavily doped during the MBE growth and then used as a gate. The great advantage of this method is that due to the mesa design, each cluster can be gated individually. This would allow large scale integration of SETs with true transistor functionality on semiconductor surfaces by optical lithography (Fig. 1 (f)), especially if the series resistor $`R_S`$ is also integrated in the electric circuit on the wafer. This would enable simultaneous trapping on a large number of devices. Another approach to position a gate electrode in very close proximity to the cluster is to grow the lower AlGaAs layer only a few tens of nanometers thick and to use a n-doped GaAs substrate. In this design the substrate could serve as a gate, however, this setup would not allow the individual gating of each cluster. Experiments to realize a gated structure are in progress and will be reported elsewhere.

In conclusion we presented a fabrication method to define compatible contacts to nanosize objects by optical lithography and selective etching. In transport measurements at low temperatures we demonstrated Coulomb blockade behavior. In order to operate the nanoclusters as SETs we proposed a gate design that allows large scale integration of such devices on semiconductor surfaces.

We want to thank Diana Mahalu for helpful discussions and her assistance in the early stages of this work. The research of R. K. was supported by the ”Fritz Thyssen Stiftung” and the European Commission under contract HPRI-CT-1999-00069. This work was partially supported by a grant from the Israel Science Foundation to J. S.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The simplest versions of the inflationary scenario of the early Universe, which produced definite predictions about the total density of matter and the power spectrum of adiabatic perturbations in the present-day Universe (later verified by observations), are based on the hypothesis that our Universe had passed through a period of quasi-exponential expansion (the de Sitter, or inflationary stage) about 14 billion years in the past, before the hot radiation-dominated (RD) Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) era occurred. This inflationary stage was driven by (at least) one effective scalar field (named inflaton) which was evolving sufficiently slow during inflation. Quantum vacuum fluctuations of this field induced by space-time curvature during the de Sitter stage are the source of spatial inhomogeneities of space-time metric and matter density which have led to formation of all structures in the present Universe including compact objects.

However, to provide required smallness of initial perturbations, an inflaton field should be very weakly coupled to other quantum fields including ”usual” ones (i.e., those of the standard model of strong, electromagnetic and weak interactions). Also, immediately after the end of an inflationary stage, all energy density in the Universe is concentrated in the quasi-homogeneous ”cold” inflaton field $`\varphi `$. So, to make matching with the subsequent hot RD stage possible, it is necessary, first, to transmit the energy density to other quantum fields of matter and, second, to heat matter in the Universe. To achieve the first aim, the inflaton should be somehow coupled to other quantum fields. The simplest way to model a coupling to bosonic fields of ”usual” matter is to introduce a second scalar field $`\xi `$ interacting with the inflaton $`\varphi `$. Of course, fermion fields and boson fields of a higher spin have to be added, too. Further, we assume the quartic interaction $`V_{int}=\frac{g^2}{2}\varphi ^2\xi ^2`$.

In the perturbative regime, when occupation numbers of inhomogeneous modes of all fields are small, energy transfer from the inflaton to other fields occurs through the process $`\varphi \varphi \xi \xi `$ which is rather slow. The same process, as well the process $`\varphi \varphi \varphi \varphi `$ (in the case of the $`\frac{\lambda \varphi ^4}{4}`$ inflaton self-interaction) and other non-linear processes, leads to reheating of matter, too. However, it was found in 90th that sometimes the energy transfer and reheating may proceed much quicker if they occur in a regime of the broad parametric resonance, see - (a narrow parametric resonance is usually not effective due to expansion of the Universe). The structure of the resonance is rather complicated : there is a stability - instability chart in the variables $`(\frac{g^2}{\lambda },k)`$ where $`k`$ is the inverse wave-length of a $`\xi `$ \- mode.

In the present work, we will show that this picture actually takes place for $`\kappa =\frac{g^2}{\lambda }1`$ only. As we will see, in the opposite case the conjecture of a single field driven inflation is not correct. This results in a drastic change of dynamics during a reheating stage. Dynamical chaos arises in the quasi-homogeneous background problem, that is a general feature for Hamiltonian systems with a large number of degrees of freedom (see, e.g., , regarding chaotic dynamics in isotropic cosmology). There is even more dramatic change in the quantum inhomogeneous reheating problem: a tachyonic instability arises for sufficiently large $`\kappa `$ and long wavelengths. It may present a problem for the standard reheating model because of generation of strong inhomogeneities. To exclude a tachyonic instability without qualitative change of the theory, one need the coupling constant $`\kappa `$ to be small as compared with unity.

## 2 Inflationary stage

Our model of the isotropic flat Universe is similar to that introduced in :

$$\ddot{\varphi }+3H\dot{\varphi }+\lambda \varphi ^3+g^2\xi ^2\varphi =0,$$
(1)
$$\ddot{\xi }+3H\dot{\xi }+g^2\varphi ^2\xi =0,$$
(2)
$$H^2=\frac{8\pi }{3M_P^2}\left(\frac{1}{2}\dot{\varphi }^2+\frac{1}{2}\dot{\xi }^2+\frac{\lambda }{4}\varphi ^4+\frac{g^2}{2}\varphi ^2\xi ^2\right).$$
(3)
The usual point of view  is that the inflationary stage is driven by the field $`\varphi `$ and the dynamics of field $`\xi `$ is not important until the inflation is finished. Actually a criterion of validity of this statement is given by a value of the effective mass of the field $`\xi `$. If initial conditions for (1 \- 3) are such that the mass of $`\xi `$ is much larger than the Hubble parameter $`H`$, inflation becomes single-field driven soon after its beginning, and the scenario described in  is realized. In fact, this condition limits the coupling constant $`\kappa =g^2/\lambda `$: if the inequality $`m_\xi ^2=g^2\varphi ^2H^2=2\pi G\lambda \varphi ^4/3`$ remains valid until the end of inflation (when $`G\varphi ^21`$), then $`\kappa 1`$ ($`M_P^2=G^1`$).

What happens when the coupling constant $`\kappa `$ is not large? Let us suppose that $`\xi `$ is never dynamically important in this regime, too:

$$g^2\xi ^2\lambda \varphi ^2.$$
(4)
Here $`\varphi `$ and $`\xi `$ may be understood both as operators and stochastic quasi-classical quantities. Furthermore, let us consider the period of inflation when fluctuations in $`\varphi `$ may be neglected, so that the background field $`\varphi `$ may be considered as a deterministic quantity. Its evolution as a function of $`\tau =\mathrm{ln}(a(t)/a_f)`$, where $`a_f`$ is the value of the scale factor at the end of inflation (thus, $`\tau <0`$), is given by the equation

$$\varphi ^2=\frac{\tau }{\pi G},|\tau |1.$$
(5)
Then the evolution of $`\xi `$ may be calculated in the Gaussian approximation (i.e., assuming that its distribution is Gaussian). The following inequality is valid in the regime under consideration: $`m_\xi ^2=g^2\varphi ^2H^2=2\pi G\lambda \varphi ^4/3`$. Since $`G\varphi ^21`$ during inflation, it is satisfied, if $`g^2`$ is not too much larger than $`\lambda `$ (in fact, this regime takes place everywhere on the ”phase diagram” of our theory except for the region $`\kappa 1`$!). The equation for the evolution of $`z\pi G\xi ^2`$ reads:

$$\frac{dz}{d\tau }=\frac{2m_\xi ^2z}{3H^2}+\frac{GH^2}{4\pi }=\frac{g^2z}{\lambda \tau }+\frac{\lambda \tau ^2}{6\pi ^2}.$$
(6)
Let us take $`z=0`$ for $`|\tau |=\tau _0`$ as an initial condition. Then

$$z=C|\tau |^{g^2/\lambda }\frac{\lambda |\tau |^3}{6\pi ^2\left(3\frac{g^2}{\lambda }\right)},C=\frac{\lambda \tau _0^{3\frac{g^2}{\lambda }}}{6\pi ^2\left(3\frac{g^2}{\lambda }\right)}.$$
(7)
As we can see, there is a stochastic growth of $`\xi ^2`$ due to the second term on the right-hand side. Thus, we come to an inconsistency with the conjecture (4): it is impossible to neglect the influence of $`\xi `$ on the large-scale inflationary dynamics, and one needs to solve a two-field problem if $`\kappa `$ is not large as compared with unity. This fact results in a radical change of reheating dynamics, too. Now we are going to discuss this question in detail.

## 3 Reheating: solution of a homogeneous problem

It is convenient  to introduce new ”conformal” variables $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }=a\varphi `$, $`\stackrel{~}{\xi }=a\xi `$, $`\eta =\frac{dt}{a}`$ soon after the end of inflation. The equations (1 \- 3) take the following form in these variables (a prime denotes the derivative with respect to the conformal time $`\eta `$):

$$\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^{\prime \prime }\frac{a^{\prime \prime }}{a}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }+\lambda \stackrel{~}{\varphi }^3+g^2\stackrel{~}{\xi }^2\stackrel{~}{\varphi }=0,$$
(8)
$$\stackrel{~}{\xi }^{\prime \prime }\frac{a^{\prime \prime }}{a}\stackrel{~}{\xi }+g^2\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^2\stackrel{~}{\xi }=0,$$
(9)
$$\left(a^{}\right)^2=\frac{8\pi }{3M_P^2}\left(\frac{1}{2}\left(\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^{}\frac{a^{}}{a}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }\right)^2+\frac{1}{2}\left(\stackrel{~}{\xi }^{}\frac{a^{}}{a}\stackrel{~}{\xi }\right)^2+\frac{\lambda }{4}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^4+\frac{g^2}{2}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^2\stackrel{~}{\xi }^2\right).$$
(10)
After the end of the inflationary stage, terms containing $`\frac{a^{\prime \prime }}{a}`$ and $`\frac{a^{}}{a}`$ may be neglected. Then the system (8-10) is drastically simplified making the problem almost Hamiltonian:

$$\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^{\prime \prime }+\lambda \stackrel{~}{\varphi }^3+g^2\stackrel{~}{\xi }^2\stackrel{~}{\varphi }=0,$$
(11)
$$\stackrel{~}{\xi }^{\prime \prime }+g^2\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^2\stackrel{~}{\xi }=0,$$
(12)
$$\left(a^{}\right)^2=\frac{8\pi }{3M_P^2}\left(\frac{1}{2}\left(\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^{}\right)^2+\frac{1}{2}\left(\stackrel{~}{\xi }^{}\right)^2+\frac{\lambda }{4}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^4+\frac{g^2}{2}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^2\stackrel{~}{\xi }^2\right)=\frac{8\pi }{3M_P^2}E.$$
(13)
Structure of its solutions can easily be understood using the projection of its phase space onto the plain $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^{}=0`$, $`\stackrel{~}{\xi }^{}=0`$. The region where the system moves is bounded by the curve

$$\stackrel{~}{\xi }=\pm \frac{1}{g|\stackrel{~}{\varphi }|}\sqrt{2\left(E\frac{\lambda }{4}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^4\right)}.$$
(14)
There are two essentially different regimes of the system behaviour. The first is realized when $`\stackrel{~}{\xi }`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }`$ are of the same order. Then both fields oscillate. The system moves somewhere in the region near the origin, and its motion is substantially chaotic because of chaotic character of energy redistribution between $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\xi }`$ degrees of freedom. For larger $`\kappa `$, chaos becomes stronger. We call these periods ”chaotic eras”.

The second regime is realized when a strong fluctuation of $`\left(\stackrel{~}{\xi }^{}\right)^2`$ occurs, and the system leaves the central region percolating into a ”tube” under or below this region. This tube is narrow, so the system cannot live inside it during an infinite time. The lower the energy of the system $`E`$ and the higher the control parameter $`\kappa `$ are, the larger is the number of oscillations inside the tube. We call these periods ”regular” (because of the possibility of finding an approximate solution for $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\xi }`$) or ”double - period eras” (because of the analogy with intermittency in hydrodynamics).

## 4 Special solution with synchronous oscillations

Let us consider a particular case when initial conditions are chosen in such a way that homogeneous components of $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\xi }`$ are proportional to each other at the end of inflation. Of course, generically it is not so. However, we will see below that this special solution correctly reproduces almost all features characteristic for a generic case.

Examining the equations (11,12) it is easy to find that if $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }=\alpha \stackrel{~}{\xi }`$, then the constant $`\alpha `$ is fixed:

$$\alpha ^2=\frac{g^2}{g^2\lambda }=\frac{\kappa }{\kappa 1},$$
(15)
and we have the following equation for $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }`$:

$$\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^{\prime \prime }+g^2\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^3=0$$
(16)
Of course, there is no chaos for this solution. Now we consider fluctuations of $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\xi }`$ on this background. Introducing the Fourier mode decomposition as usual, we get:

$$\delta \stackrel{~}{\xi }_{k}^{}{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }+\left(k^2+g^2\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^2\right)\delta \stackrel{~}{\xi }_k+2g^2\stackrel{~}{\xi }\stackrel{~}{\varphi }\delta \stackrel{~}{\varphi }_k=0,$$
(17)
$$\delta \stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{k}^{}{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }+\left(k^2+3\lambda \stackrel{~}{\varphi }^2+g^2\stackrel{~}{\xi }^2\right)\delta \stackrel{~}{\varphi }_k+2g^2\stackrel{~}{\xi }\stackrel{~}{\varphi }\delta \stackrel{~}{\xi }_k=0.$$
(18)
When $`\delta \stackrel{~}{\varphi }_k`$ and $`\delta \stackrel{~}{\xi }_k`$ modes are strongly coupled to each other, it is not clear how to determine the number of particles as well as Floquet indices. Nevertheless, it is possible to introduce new decoupled perturbations:

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_k=A\delta \stackrel{~}{\xi }_k+B\delta \stackrel{~}{\varphi }_k,$$
(19)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }_k=C\delta \stackrel{~}{\xi }_k+D\delta \stackrel{~}{\varphi }_k$$
(20)
where $`A,B,C,D`$ are some constants to be determined. Omitting a simple calculation, we present final equations for these rotated perturbations:

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_k^{\prime \prime }+(k^2+3g^2\varphi ^2)\mathrm{\Sigma }_k=0,$$
(21)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }_k^{\prime \prime }+(k^2+\frac{2\kappa }{\kappa }g^2\varphi ^2)\mathrm{\Delta }_k=0.$$
(22)
Therefore, first, the presence of $`\xi 0`$ results in rotation in the space of field perturbations. Now correct variables are the rotated ones. It should be noted that the definition of fields $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_k`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_k`$ strongly depends on $`\kappa `$, so there is no hope to construct something like a stability-instability chart for arbitrary initial fields $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\xi }`$.

Second, the field $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_k`$ can be interpreted as an ”inflaton” with the wave vector $`k`$, because the structure of (21) is the same as for the inflaton mode if $`\stackrel{~}{\xi }=0`$.

Third, there is a tachyonic instability for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_k`$ when $`\kappa >2`$. It means that there is an avalanche-like creation of excitations for this mode, but these excitations are quite unlike usual particles. Instead, we have a chaotic growth of spatial inhomogeneities. It is interesting to note that this special toy solution gives an opportunity to investigate the system behaviour near the boundary of chaotic instability. The boundary for the instability for this toy solution is sharp – there is no instability for all modes $`k`$ if $`\kappa 2`$. On the other hand, $`\kappa >1`$ is necessary for this solution to exist at all.

It turns out that almost all these consequences are valid in a generic case (background fields $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\xi }`$ are both nonzero and independent) if we consider the WKB regime of an inhomogeneous problem. There is only one difference – it is hardly possible to determine an exact boundary of instability in this case. This will be discussed elsewhere.

## 5 Discussion

We see that the structure of resonance in the standard reheating theory (1 \- 3) can be more complicated than the picture presented in . The stability - instability chart exists for $`\kappa 1`$ only (i.e., in the broad resonance regime), and there is no possibility of its constructing for not too large $`\kappa `$ because of the appearance of chaos in the homogeneous background problem and the necessity to rotate modes. The underlying reason is the stochastic growth of $`\xi ^2`$ during inflation. As a result, quasi-homogeneous backgrounds for both scalar fields $`\varphi `$ and $`\xi `$ are non-zero by the end and after inflation. Thus, chaos occurs in the homogeneous reheating problem, which is a usual situation for Hamiltonian system with a sufficiently large dimension of the phase space. Note that the Toda-Brumer necessary criterion for the global dynamical chaos (a negative determinant of the matrix $`^2U(\varphi ,\xi )/\varphi \xi `$) is fulfilled for our model. Generically, chaotic mixing in the $`(\stackrel{~}{\varphi },\stackrel{~}{\xi })`$ plane rapidly provides equipartition of energy density between the inflaton ($`\varphi `$) and the other matter field ($`\xi `$). Thus, the first aim of reheating is achieved.

Evolution of conformally transformed fields $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\xi }`$ consists of consequent chaotic ($`|\stackrel{~}{\varphi }||\stackrel{~}{\xi }|`$) and regular ($`|\stackrel{~}{\varphi }||\stackrel{~}{\xi }|`$) eras. This phenomenon is similar to intermittency in the theory of nonlinear dynamics. There, it is well known that the number of chaotic eras grows while increasing an external parameter of a system ($`1/\kappa `$ in our case). This analogy leads to a conjecture that a critical $`\kappa _c`$ exists such that regular eras disappear for $`\kappa <\kappa _c`$.

Dynamics of quantum reheating in the case of nonzero $`\xi (t)`$ differs from the picture  even without dynamical chaos in the problem (1-3). The first new feature is a time-dependent rotation in the space of modes $`\delta \stackrel{~}{\varphi }_k`$ and $`\delta \stackrel{~}{\xi }_k`$. This effect is not unexpected: while our work was in preparation, papers discussing the same effect have appeared ,. Its necessity is clear from the physical point of view: the Universe should be filled up with particle-like excitations after a reheating stage. It is well known that the term ”particle” is correctly defined for an oscillator with a variable frequency in the WKB-regime only. The correct WKB-solution may not be constructed without mode rotation in our case.

The second, more important, feature is the appearance of tachyonic instability for sufficiently large $`\kappa `$ and long wavelengths. This effect is different from that recently found in the theory of reheating in the course of spontaneous symmetry breaking after the end of the hybrid inflation ,. The latter effect occurs in case the oscillation frequency of background fields immediately after inflation is much more than the Hubble parameter $`H`$ at this moment. In our model, this is not the case and there is no spontaneous symmetry breaking. So, initially it was hardly possible to expect a vacuum instability with respect to the creation of tachyonic excitations.

The tachyonic instability in our model is more like an instability in chaotic dynamical systems with a positive largest Lyapunov exponent 111Regarding long wavelength perturbations, a close point of view was expressed in the recent paper  which appeared when our paper was prepared for publication.. The question arises immediately: is it a desirable or undesirable property? On one hand, this instability is closely connected with chaotic mixing leading to a rapid transfer of energy density from the inflaton to other fields. On the other hand, it produces strong spatial inhomogeneities in the Universe (and inhomogeneously distributed high-energy particles as was in the case of the broad parametric resonance type preheating ,). Special investigation is needed to track the further fate of these inhomogeneities. At this moment, we want to state only that, to avoid a strong tachyonic instability, the coupling constant $`\kappa `$ should be either sufficiently small, or very large (in the latter case, there is no chaos in the homogeneous reheating problem, and the results of  remain valid).

This research was partially supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, grants 99-02-16224 and 00-15-96699, and by the Research Programme ”Quantum Macrophysics” of the Russian Academy of Sciences.