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# The pair-breaking critical current density of magnesium diboride

## I Introduction

Magnesium diboride (MgB2) recently made an impact as a promising new superconductor with a surprisingly high critical temperature for a simple binary compound. This has spurred considerable research activity into investigating the myriad properties associated with its superconducting state. Besides the critical temperature $`T_c`$ and the upper critical field $`H_{c2}`$, an intrinsic parameter that sets a fundamental limit to the survival of superconductivity is the pair-breaking (or depairing) critical current density $`j_d`$. We report the first measurement of this important quantity in the MgB2 superconductor, which sets an absolute limit to the maximum current-carrying performance under ideal conditions. This also represents, to our knowledge, the only complete ($`0T`$ $`T_c`$) measurement of $`j_d`$ by a direct transport method in any type-II superconductor.

When a superconducting state is formed, charge carriers correlate and condense into a coherent macroscopic quantum state. The formation of this state is governed principally by a competition between four energies: condensation, magnetic-field expulsion, thermal, and kinetic. The order parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, that describes the extent of condensation and the strength of the superconducting state, is reduced as the temperature $`T`$, magntetic field $`H`$, and electric current density $`j`$ are increased. The boundary in the $`T`$-$`H`$-$`j`$ phase space that separates the superconducting and normal states is where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ vanishes, and the three parameters attain their critical values $`T_c(H,j)`$, $`H_{c2}(T,j)`$, and $`j_d(T,H)`$.

In practice, a superconductor loses its ability to carry resistanceless current long before $`j`$ reaches $`j_d`$. Any process that causes the phase difference between two points to change with time—such as the motion of flux vortices, phase slip centers in narrow wires, junctions, and fluctuations—can generate a finite voltage and hence resistance. The conventional critical-current density $`j_c`$ marks this onset of dissipation—depending on extrinsic variables such as vortex pinning by defects—and in type-II superconductors can be a few orders of magnitude lower than $`j_d`$. Thus the transport becomes resistive and intensely dissipative long before the thermodynamic limit is reached, tending to mask a direct measurement of $`j_d`$ by sample heating. In this work we use a highly evolved pulsed-current technique (which we have refined over ten years) to reduce heating and obtain $`j_d`$$`(T0)`$ both from (1) a direct measurement of $`j`$ required to drive the system normal at $`T`$$`T_c`$ and (2) from the shift in $`T_c`$ as a function of $`j`$ near $`T`$$`T_c`$.

## II Theoretical background

A theoretical estimate of $`j_d`$ can be obtained from the Ginzburg-Landau (GL) theory, in which the strength of the superconducting state is expressed through the complex phenomenogical order parameter $`\psi =|\psi |e^{i\phi }`$. The superfluid density near $`T_c`$ is proportional to $`|\psi |^2`$ and the free-energy density $`f`$ of the system (w.r.t. the free-energy density in the normal state) can be expressed as a power expansion in $`|\psi |^2`$ (In “dirty” superconductors—superconductors with a high impurity scattering rate—the approximate validity of the GL expressions extends down to $`T`$ $`T_c`$.). In the absence of significant magnetic fields and in situations where the magnitude of the order parameter $`|\psi |`$ is uniform (either because the dimensions of the sample are small compared to the coherence length or because of the principle of minimum entropy production at high dissipation levelsmetal ) $`f`$ can be expressed astinkhamtext

$$f=\alpha |\psi |^2+\frac{\beta }{2}|\psi |^4+\frac{1}{2}|\psi |^2m^{}v_s^2.$$
(1)
$`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are negative and positive constants respectively ($`\alpha `$ becomes positive above $`T_c`$), and the positive third term is the kinetic energy density expressed in terms of the superfluid velocity $`𝒗_s=\frac{\mathrm{}\phi }{m^{}}\frac{e^{}𝑨}{cm^{}}`$; where $`e^{}`$ and $`m^{}`$ are respectively the effective charge and mass of a cooper pair. For zero $`v_s`$, the equilibrium value of $`|\psi |^2`$ that minimizes the free energy (Eq. 1) is $`|\psi _{\mathrm{}}|^2=\alpha /\beta `$. For a finite $`v_s`$ it becomes

$$|\psi |^2=|\psi _{\mathrm{}}|^2\left(1\frac{m^{}v_s^2}{2|\alpha |}\right).$$
(2)
The corresponding supercurrent density is

$$j=e^{}|\psi |^2v_s=2e|\psi _{\mathrm{}}|^2\left(1\frac{m^{}v_s^2}{2|\alpha |}\right)v_s.$$
(3)
The maximum possible value of this expression can now be identified with $`j_d`$:

$$j_d(T)=2e|\psi _{\mathrm{}}|^2\frac{2}{3}\left(\frac{2\alpha }{3m^{}}\right)^{1/2}=\frac{cH_c(T)}{3\sqrt{6}\pi \lambda (T)}$$
(4)
where the GL-theory parameters were replaced by their expressions $`\alpha (T)=(e^2/m^{}c^2)H_c^2(T)\lambda ^2(T)`$ and $`\beta (T)=(4\pi e^4/m^2c^4)H_c^2(T)\lambda ^4(T)`$ in terms of the physically measureable quantities $`H_c`$ (thermodynamic critical field) and $`\lambda `$ (magnetic penetration depth). The relations $`H_c(T)H_c(0)[1(T/T_c)^2]`$ and $`\lambda (T)\lambda (0)/\sqrt{[1(T/T_c)^4]}`$ give

$$j_d(T)j_d(0)[1(T/T_c)^2]^{\frac{3}{2}}[1+(T/T_c)^2]^{\frac{1}{2}}$$
(5)
where

$$j_d(0)=cH_c(0)/[3\sqrt{6}\pi \lambda (0)]$$
(6)
is the zero-temperature depairing current density. Close to $`T_c`$, Eq. 5 reduces to $`j_d(TT_c)4j_d(0)[1T/T_c]^{\frac{3}{2}}`$. This can be inverted to give the shift in transition temperature $`T_c(j)`$ at small currents, with the well-known $`j^{2/3}`$ proportionality:

$$\frac{T_c(0)T_c(j)}{T_c(0)}\left(\frac{1}{4}\right)^{\frac{2}{3}}\left[\frac{j}{j_d(0)}\right]^{\frac{2}{3}}.$$
(7)
(The preceding discussion is based on Refs. tinkhamtext  and bardeen .) Note that if heat removal from the sample is ineffective, Joule heating will give an apparent shift $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_c\rho j^2`$, which is the cube of the intrinsic $`j^{2/3}`$ depairing shift near $`T_c`$, and hence easily distinguishable.

## III Experimental details

The samples are 400 nm thick films of MgB2 fabricated using a two-step method whose details are described elsewheresampleprep ; sampleprep2 . An amorphous boron film was deposited on a (11̄02) Al2O3 substrate at room temperature by pulsed-laser ablation. The boron film was then put into a Nb tube with high-purity Mg metal (99.9%) and the Nb tube was then sealed using an arc furnace in an argon atmosphere. Finally, the heat treatment was carried out at 900 C for 30 min. in an evacuated quartz ampoule sealed under high vacuum. X-ray diffraction indicates a highly c-axis-oriented crystal structure normal to the substrate surface with no impurity phases. The films were photolithographically patterned down to narrow bridges. In this paper we show data on three bridges, labelled S, M, and L (for small, medium, and large) with lateral dimensions 2.8 x 33, 3.0 x 61, and 9.7 x 172 $`\mu `$m2 respectively. The lateral dimensions are uncertain by $`\pm 0.7\mu `$m and the thickness by $`\pm 50`$ nm.

The electrical transport measurements were made using a pulsed signal source with pulse durations ranging 0.1–4 $`\mu `$s and a duty cycle of about 1 ppm. From past experience with other films (e.g., Y1Ba2Cu3O7 on LaAlO3) we found that micron-wide bridges typically have thermal resistances of order $`R_{th}`$ 1–10 nK.cm3/W at microsecond timescales unstable ; metal ; mplb . For the present film-substrate combination, complete information about the thermal constants was not available to calculate $`R_{th}`$ from first principles, but we are able to show by other means that sample heating is not appreciable. Further details of the measurement techniques have been published in a previous review article mplb  and other recent papers metal ; unstable . All measurements were made in zero applied magnetic field and the highest self field of the current ($`300`$ G) is of the order of the lower-critical field $`H_{c1}`$=185 G wang .

## IV Results and analysis

Fig. 1(a) shows the resistive transitions at different electric currents $`I`$ for the medium sample. The inset shows the sample geometry. The horizontal sections of the current leads add a small ($`15`$ %) series resistance to the actual resistance of the bridge. Because $`j`$ in these wide regions is negligible, this resistance freezes out at the nominal unshifted $`T_c`$, making the onset seem to not shift. However over the main portions of the curves, there are substantial and relatively parallel shifts induced by current. Fig. 1(b) provides a magnified view of the central two-thirds portion of the transitions. The dashed line represents half the normal-state resistance ($`R_n`$) of the bridge, which serves as the criterion (resistive-transition-midpoint) for defining $`T_c`$$`(j)`$. Panels (c) and (d) show similar sets of curves for the other two (small and large) samples.

Fig. 2 shows the midpoint $`T_c`$’s and their corresponding currents (ranging from $`10^6`$ to $`10^2`$ A) plotted as $`I^{2/3}`$ (expected for pair-breaking) and as $`I^2`$ (expected for Joule heating). The shifts are closely proportional to $`I^{2/3}`$ rather than to $`I^2`$, showing that heating is not appreciable (the plots for samples S and L look similar). The slope $`dI^{2/3}/dT_c(j)`$ together with Eq. 7 gives a zero-temperature depairing current value of 257 mA. Dividing this by the cross-sectional area gives a current density of $`j_d`$$`(0)=2.1\times 10^7`$ A/cm2. The respective values for samples S and L are $`j_d`$$`(0)=2.2\times 10^7`$ and $`1.8\times 10^7`$ A/cm2. The three values are consistent within the uncertainities in the sample dimensions, implying a cross-sectionally uniform current density. This is expected for the dissipative state of a superconductor (In the fluctuation region near the $`T_c`$$`(j)`$ boundary and during flux motion–when the superconductor is resistive—the current flow becomes macroscopically uniform, as in a normal conductor, due to the principle of minimum entropy production. This has been discussed and verifed elsewhere metal .) and close to the $`T_c`$$`(j)`$ boundary where $`\lambda `$ and $`\xi `$ (coherence length) diverge.

Fig. 3(a) shows current-voltage ($`IV`$) characteristics at various fixed temperatures for sample M (results for samples S and L are similar). As $`I`$ is increased $`V`$ remains close to zero until some critical value. Above this it shows Ohmic behavior $`V=IR_n`$. Note that at $`T`$=35.5K the transition is gradual, whereas at the lower temperatures it is rather abrupt. This is in part because a type II superconducting phase transition changes from second order to first order at lower temperatures in the presence of a current bardeen  and possibly because of a thermal component. The “s” shape arises because the external circuit feeding the pulsed signal has a source impedance $`R_s`$ of about 12 $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Thus when the sample is driven normal, the current will drop discontinuously by the fraction $`R_n/(R_n+R_s)20\%`$ as observed. Although the amount of Joule heating cannot be directly estimated, its significance can be assessed by measuring the $`IV`$ curves in different thermal environments. The previous curves in Fig. 3(a) were all measured with the sample in helium vapour. Such measurements were repeated with the samples in superfluid and normal liquid helium, and in vacuum, and Fig. 3(b) shows one such set for the large sample (its lower surface-to-volume ratio gives it the worst thermal resistance). Fig. 3(b) shows no significant systematic influence of the environment on the observed value of $`j_d`$, which would not be the case if Joule heating were a serious problem huebener .

From such $`IV`$ characteristics measured at the lowest temperature (1.5 K) in superfluid helium, the current required to drive the sample normal provides a direct lower bound on $`j_d`$$`(T0)`$ (This lower bound will equal $`j_d`$ in the case of uniform current flow. We return to this point again later.). For the three samples S, M, and L these respective values are $`j_d`$$`(0)=1.9\times 10^7`$, $`2.0\times 10^7`$, and $`1.7\times 10^7`$ A/cm2, which are consistent with the values obtained earlier ($`2.2\times 10^7`$, $`2.1\times 10^7`$, and $`1.8\times 10^7`$ A/cm2) from the shifts in the resistive transitions near $`T_c`$ (Fig. 2 and Eq. 7).

Fig. 4 shows the values of $`I_d`$ at different temperatures obtained from the $`IV`$ characteristics of Fig. 3(a). Also shown are the values of $`I_d`$ obtained from the shifts in the resistive transition near $`T_c`$ (from Fig. 2). The solid line is a plot of Eq. 5 in which the values of $`T_c`$$`(0)`$ and $`I_d`$$`(0)`$ came directly from the observed $`j^{2/3}`$ behavior of Fig. 2 and were not adjusted to fit the other data over the extended temperature range, nor was $`I_d`$$`(0)`$ adjusted to fit the actual measured value from the $`IV`$ characteristic at low $`T`$ (i.e., Fig. 3). Nevertheless, the $`I_d`$$`(T)`$ data tend to follow the general trend of Eq. 5.

An aspect of these data that may seem surprising is that even for $`T`$ $`T_c`$ (where the sample width $`w\lambda ,\xi `$), the average current density in the bridge reaches essentially the full $`j_d`$ before the system becomes normal. By contrast, previous studies skocpol  of $`j_d`$ in wide low-$`T_c`$ type-I bridges found that the current distribution was non-uniform and the sample was driven normal when the peak $`j`$ near the surface exceeded $`j_d`$. Using their model with our sample dimensions and parameters, our effective $`j_d`$ should have been reduced by a factor of 3, but it is not. In our present relatively high-$`T_c`$ type II material, it seems that the slight flux motion induced by the self field and fluctuations (because of the proximity to the $`T_c`$$`(j)`$ phase boundary and much higher $`T`$) serve to homogenize the current distribution. Ironically, such incipient dissipation may actually stabilize the flow and permit the average $`j`$ to get closer to $`j_d`$ before the system becomes normal.

In conclusion, we have measured the fundamental pair-breaking critical current density of magnesium diboride over the entire temperature range for in-plane current transport. The measured $`j_d`$$`(T)`$ function is consistent with the Ginzburg-Landau form and conforms exactly to the $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_cj^{2/3}`$ behavior predicted near $`T_c`$. $`j_d`$$`(0)`$ obtained from the value of current required to drive the sample normal at $`T0`$, agrees with the $`j_d`$$`(0)`$ deduced from the $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_cj^{2/3}`$ behavior close to $`T_c`$. The average value for all samples by both methods is $`j_d`$$`(0)1.9\pm 0.4\times 10^7`$ A/cm2. This is comparable in order of magnitude to the value of $`6.1\times 10^7`$ A/cm2 calculated from Eq. 6 and the published values of $`H_c`$=2500 G and $`\lambda =185`$ nm from the review on MgB2 by Wang et al. wang , in view of the uncertainities in those parameters. From a technological standpoint, the depairing current density of MgB2 is about an order of magnitude lower than the high-$`T_c`$ cuprates pair . The good news is that the flux pinning in films is so strong (because of the larger coherence length and more isotropically 3-D behavior) that the depinning $`j_c`$ at modest fields appear to be within an order of magnitude of $`j_d`$ otherhighjs , whereas for the cuprates $`j_c`$ and $`j_d`$ can be separated by two or three orders of magnitudemgbfluxflow .

## V Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge useful discussions and other assistance from J. M. Knight, B. I. Ivlev, C. Wu, D. H. Arcos, H.H.Acros, H.J. Kim, E.M. Choi, K.J. Kim, and D. K. Finnemore. This work was supported by the U. S. Department of Energy through grant number DE-FG02-99ER45763 and by the Creative Research Initiatives of the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology.


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# Modeling scanning tunneling spectra of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ

## I Introduction

Scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) is a powerful tool to study the electronic properties of solids. Its remarkable energy and spatial resolution makes it particularly well suited for materials characterized by small energy and short length scales, like the cuprate high-$`T_c`$ superconductors (HTS). Among the HTS, the bilayer compound Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ (BSCCO) has often been studied by STS, because it cleaves easily and offers an atomically flat BiO surface. It is possible to tunnel through the insulating BiO and SrO surface layers into the CuO2 plane, where all the exciting properties of the cuprates are believed to reside. Many important results on the nature of the superconducting, normal, and mixed state of BSCCO have been obtained using STS.Renner:1998a ; Miyakawa:1999 ; Hudson:1999 ; Zasadzinski:2001 ; Pan:2001 ; Hoogenboom:2001 ; Hoffman:2002 ; Misra:2002

In the superconducting state, the main feature of the differential tunneling conductance ($`dI/dV`$) spectrum is the quasiparticle excitation gap, which has been observed in BSCCO and studied as a function of doping and temperature.Renner:1998a ; Miyakawa:1999 ; Kaneko:1998 ; Matsuura:1998 ; Matsuda:1999  The presence of excitations within the superconducting gap, linearly increasing with energy around $`V=0`$, indicates that the order parameter has nodes, and presumably $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ symmetry. Other characteristics of the BSCCO spectra are the celebrated dip-hump structure at energies larger than the excitation gap, an asymmetry between electron and hole tunneling, and coherence peaks with considerably more spectral weight than predicted by BCS theory. None of these three characteristics has been met with an explanation that is commonly agreed upon.

Under certain assumptions,Mahan:1983 ; Harrison:1961  and considering the nearly two-dimensional nature of BSCCO, one finds that the shape of the STS spectrum is determined by only three ingredients: the bare electron dispersion $`\epsilon _𝒌`$ in the CuO2 plane, the self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(𝒌,\omega )`$ which embodies all electronic interactions, and a tunneling matrix element $`T_𝒌`$ which couples the electronic states of momentum $`𝒌`$ at the sample surface with the metallic tip. In the particular case where $`T_𝒌`$ is a constant, the STS spectrum directly relates to the quasiparticle density of states (DOS) in the CuO2 plane. Behind this apparently simple statement lies a real difficulty to disentangle the contribution of each of the above ingredients. Various features in the STS spectra were thus attributed either to van Hove singularities in the band-structureBok:1997 ; Wei:1998  or to self-energy effects.Hirsch:1999 ; Cren:2000  Furthermore, the general shape of the low-temperature spectrum was considered suggestive of an anisotropic matrix element.Wei:1998 ; Kouznetsov:1996 ; Yusof:1998 ; Franz:1999

The situation has recently become even more complicated with the observation of a clear bilayer splitting by angle-resolved photoemission (ARPES).Feng:2001 ; Chuang:2001 ; Kordyuk:2002  The two CuO2 layers in the BSCCO unit cell give rise to two non-degenerate bands close to the Fermi energy. As a consequence, there are two bands — instead of one, as assumed previously — which can contribute to the $`dI/dV`$ spectra. Using ARPES, the shape of these bands has been determined in the normal state of underdoped and overdoped BSCCO.Kordyuk:2002b

In fact, the correct interpretation of STS spectra relies upon a realistic modeling of the data, and different models can lead to opposite conclusions. Moreover, the modeling critically depends on details of the band structureKordyuk:2002b  and of the spin excitation spectrum,Fong:1999 ; He:2001  which have become available only very recently.

In this study we compare the predictions of several models to the STS spectra measured at low temperature on BSCCO samples with different oxygen dopings levels.Renner:1998a  Our calculations take into account the bilayer splitting and are based on the band structures determined in Ref. Kordyuk:2002b, . We assume a pure $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ symmetry of the superconducting gap and consider three different models for the self-energy: a conventional BCS model; a phenomenological model proposed to fit the ARPES data,Kordyuk:2002b  thus allowing a direct comparison between photoemission and tunneling; and a model which describes the coupling of quasiparticles to a collective mode.Eschrig:2000  We also compare the effects of isotropic and anisotropic tunneling matrix elements.

## II Modeling the tunneling spectra

In the tunneling-Hamiltonian formalism,Mahan:1983  the sample and tip are coupled by a matrix element $`M_{𝒌𝒒}`$ which represents the overlap of the electronic states on both sides of the tunnel junction. The resulting differential conductance at bias voltage $`V`$ is given by

$$\frac{dI}{dV}𝑑\omega \underset{𝒌,n}{}|T_𝒌|^2A_n(𝒌,\omega )f^{}(\omega eV)$$
(1)
where $`f`$ is the Fermi function and $`A_n`$ is the spectral function in the sample. The sign convention is such that, at zero temperature, negative energies $`\omega `$ and $`eV`$ correspond to occupied states, and positive energies to unoccupied states. The new matrix element appearing in Eq. (1) is $`|T_𝒌|^2=_𝒒|M_{𝒌𝒒}|^2A_{\text{tip}}(𝒒,\omega )`$. Using a tip with a featureless DOS, we can assume that it is energy independent. According to Ref. Harrison:1961,  the dependence of $`T_𝒌`$ on $`k_z`$ is cancelled by the band dispersion along $`k_z`$ ($`z`$ is the tunneling direction). In Eq. (1), $`n`$ refers to the two bands resulting from the bilayer splitting as discussed below. We assume that the $`k_{xy}`$ dependence of $`T_𝒌`$ is the same for both bands; this then leads to an $`n`$-independent matrix element. $`A_n`$ is related to the electron dispersion and self-energy through

$$A(𝒌,\omega )=\frac{1}{\pi }\text{Im}\left[\frac{1}{\omega +i\mathrm{\Gamma }\epsilon _𝒌\mathrm{\Sigma }(𝒌,\omega )}\right].$$
(2)
The band index is omitted for simplicity. The lifetime broadening $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is introduced here for computational convenience and is set to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1`$ meV in all of our calculations.

To account for the bilayer splitting, we use the band structures determined in Ref. Kordyuk:2002b,  for the anti-bonding (A, plus sign) and bonding (B, minus sign) bands:

$`\epsilon _𝒌^{\text{(A,\hspace{0.17em}B)}}`$ $`=`$ $`2t(\mathrm{cos}k_x+\mathrm{cos}k_y)+4t^{}\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y`$ (3)
$`2t^{\prime \prime }(\mathrm{cos}2k_x+\mathrm{cos}2k_y)`$
$`\pm \frac{1}{4}t_{}(\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y)^2+\mathrm{\Delta }\epsilon .`$
The interlayer coupling is described by $`t_{}`$; the maximum energy splitting between the A and B bands is $`2t_{}`$ and coincides with the van Hove singularities at the $`(\pi ,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0})`$ point in the Brillouin zone. The tight-binding parameters inferred from ARPES for overdoped (OD69.0K) and underdoped (UD77.0K) BSCCO are given in Table 1. These parameters deviate slightly from those reported in Ref. Kordyuk:2002b, . $`t_{}`$ was determined in Ref. Kordyuk:2002b,  for the OD69.0K sample. The determination of $`t_{}`$ for the UD77.0K sample is complicated by the strong influence of the pseudo- and superconducting gaps on the photoemission spectra. For that reason, UD77.0K was assumed to have the same $`t_{}`$ as OD69.0K in Ref. Kordyuk:2002b, . In this work, we have estimated $`t_{}`$ for UD77.0K from a careful comparison between leading edge gaps of the A and B bands.Borisenko:2002  The remaining parameters were modified accordingly. This leads to a better agreement with the tunneling data. From the parameters of OD69.0K and UD77.0K, we make a linear interpolation with doping to obtain the parameters appropriate for the samples studied by STS (Table 1).extra\_pol

The first model we consider is the conventional BCS model. In this case the self-energy reads:

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }^{(1)}(𝒌,\omega )=\frac{|\mathrm{\Delta }_𝒌|^2}{\omega +i\mathrm{\Gamma }+\epsilon _𝒌},$$
(4)
where the gap has $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ symmetry: $`\mathrm{\Delta }_𝒌=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Delta }_0(\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y)`$. The only free parameter, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$, is adjusted to the experimental data.

In the second model, we follow an attempt to fit ARPES measurementsKordyuk:2002b  by complementing the BCS model with a phenomenological $`𝒌`$-independent self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0(\omega )`$. At low energy, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0(\omega )`$ has a marginal Fermi liquid form:

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_0(\omega )=\lambda \omega i\sqrt{(\alpha _0\omega )^2+(\beta _0k_\text{B}T)^2}.$$
(5)
Good agreement with ARPES was found with the parameters $`\lambda =1`$, $`\alpha _0=2`$, and $`\beta _0=4`$.Kordyuk:2002b ; Kordyuk:2002a ; Lanzara:2001 ; Johnson:2001 ; Gromko:2002  The complete self-energy including the superconducting gap is

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }^{(2)}(𝒌,\omega )=\mathrm{\Sigma }_0(\omega )+\frac{|\mathrm{\Delta }_𝒌|^2}{\omega +i\mathrm{\Gamma }+\epsilon _𝒌\mathrm{\Sigma }_0(\omega )}.$$
(6)
Eq. (6) can be recast in a form similar to Eq. (4), with the bare dispersion $`\epsilon _𝒌`$ and gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }_𝒌`$ renormalized to $`c\epsilon _𝒌`$ and $`c\mathrm{\Delta }_𝒌`$, respectively, and the lifetime broadening $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ replaced by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }c\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }_0(\omega )`$ with $`c=(1+\lambda )^1`$. We will use Eq. (6) to check if the self-energy inferred from ARPES is compatible with the STS data.

Finally, the third model we consider accounts for the possible interaction of the quasiparticles with a collective mode. Such a mode was indeed observed in BSCCO by neutron scattering, with momentum centered at $`(\pi ,\pi )`$.Fong:1999  It appears at an energy $`\mathrm{\Omega }5.4k_\text{B}T_c`$,He:2001  and is characterized by a correlation length $`\xi 2`$ in lattice units (we will take $`\xi =2`$ in our simulations). The interaction of this mode with the electrons was described theoretically in Ref. Eschrig:2000, , and involves a coupling constant $`g`$ for which we choose the value $`g=0.65`$ eV. The self-energy entering Eq. (2) is

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }^{(3)}(𝒌,\omega )=\mathrm{\Sigma }_{11}(𝒌,\omega )+\frac{|\mathrm{\Delta }_𝒌+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{12}(𝒌,\omega )|^2}{\omega +i\mathrm{\Gamma }+\epsilon _𝒌\mathrm{\Sigma }_{22}(𝒌,\omega )}.$$
(7)
The components $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{ij}`$ are a convolution of the bare BCS propagator (in Nambu representation) with the spin susceptibility. The latter is represented by a simple analytical function which approximates the neutron measurements. We refer the reader to Ref. Eschrig:2000,  for further details.

Very little is known about the actual $`𝒌`$-dependence of the tunneling matrix element, although band calculations suggest that it is anisotropic with a shape corresponding to the dispersion of the bilayer splitting,Andersen:1995  i.e. $`(\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y)^2`$. Such a matrix element would prohibit tunneling into the nodal direction $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ and would highlight the region $`(\pi ,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0})`$ of the van Hove singularities. We will consider the two limiting cases of a completely isotropic $`T_s=T_0`$ and anisotropic $`T_d=T_0(\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y)`$ matrix element, as well as admixtures of the form $`|T_𝒌|^2=\alpha |T_s|^2+(1\alpha )|T_d|^2`$.

For each model we calculate the differential tunneling conductance using Eq. (1) and a $`1024\times 1024`$ mesh of $`𝒌`$ points. The temperature is set to 4.2 K. The experimental energy resolution is simulated by filtering the data with a Gaussian of width 1 meV. Finally, unless stated otherwise, the calculated spectra are normalized to the total spectral weight of the experimental data over the energy range from $`300`$ to $`+300`$ meV.

## III Results and discussion

### III.1 BCS model

To compare the calculated spectra with experimental results over a wide doping range, we use low-temperature (4.2 K) data of Renner et al.Renner:1998a  The results of the BCS model, with an isotropic matrix element, are shown in Fig. 1. The agreement at subgap energies is good, except for OD74.3K where the spectral weight is somewhat underestimated. The (calculated and experimental) spectra show the V-shape at zero bias typical for a $`d`$-wave order parameter. At higher energies, however, the model misses the dip-hump feature, which is most pronounced in the optimally doped and underdoped spectra at $`60`$ to $`100`$ meV, and the model generally presents too sharp structures. In particular, the van Hove singularities of the A and B bands show up unrenormalized in the spectra while no such singularities exist in the experimental curves. None of these discrepancies can be reduced by the inclusion of an anisotropic matrix element, which would suppress spectral weight below the gap energy and raise the van Hove singularities even more. Nevertheless, with this first approach we can draw some conclusions which remain valid for the more sophisticated models discussed below.

From the difference between the A and B bands, it becomes clear that most of the weight of the coherence peaks in the tunneling spectra is related to the van Hove singularity of the A band, which lies close to the Fermi level. The presence of the van Hove singularity in the coherence peaks explains their unusual height.Wei:1998  Note, however, that without the B band the peaks would become too high (with respect to the background) to fit the experimental data. The van Hove singularity also explains why the peak at negative bias is generally a bit higher than the one at positive bias.

In general, we observe that the van Hove singularity of the A band remains close to the Fermi level (integrated in the coherence peaks) for all doping levels. The van Hove singularity of the B band, however, moves to higher binding energy with underdoping. This shift is related to the combined effects of increasing gap and increasing $`t_{}`$ with underdoping. It is in qualitative agreement with the behavior observed in the background of the experimental data:Renner:1998a ; Miyakawa:1999  on going from overdoped to underdoped, the background of the spectra becomes more asymmetric. One can distinguish a very broad feature moving away from the Fermi level with underdoping. In fact, we have shown that this background can be fitted very well by a broadened van Hove singularity at energies consistent with the doping level, in a rigid single-band picture.Hoogenboom:2002PhD  These energies are indicated by arrows in Fig. 1. In the present calculation, however, the van Hove peaks are located at different energies.

Summarizing this discussion, the tunneling spectra are consistent with a sharp van Hove singularity just below the Fermi level, and a very broad van Hove singularity moving to higher binding energy with underdoping. Apart from the dip-hump feature, the questions left open by the BCS model are the precise energy shift of the van Hove singularity of the bonding band, as well as the mechanism of its broadening.

### III.2 Comparison of tunneling and ARPES

The absence of a sharp van Hove singularity of the B band in the tunneling spectra is a clear indication that one should go beyond the bare BCS DOS to explain all features in the spectra. In principle, it should be possible to take spectral functions directly from ARPES data and sum them to compare to the tunneling results. However, this is complicated by the strong influence of matrix elements on the photoemission spectra (see e.g. Ref. Kordyuk:2002a, ) and of the background in the ARPES data. We therefore rely on the phenomenological model of the spectral function at low energy described above \[with self-energy Eq. (6)\]. This description crudely includes the effects of correlation in the marginal Fermi liquid self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0(\omega )`$. With such an approach we can first directly compare tunneling and ARPES, and also study the ability of the marginal Fermi liquid model to account for tunneling data.

The ARPES data could be fitted using Eq. (6) with $`\alpha _0=2`$. In Fig. 2 we compare the calculations for $`\alpha _0=2`$ to experimental tunneling data. Note that the energy scale is a factor 2 smaller than in Figs. 1 and 3. As can be seen, the calculated curves (dotted lines) do not fit the experimental data at all. In particular, the V-shape of the spectra at low energy is too narrow. One might expect that the excess spectral weight in the gap can be suppressed by an anisotropic matrix element. However, as shown by the dashed lines, this is not the case. The reason is that the low-energy spectral weight is dominated by the marginal Fermi liquid self-energy, and not by the gap function.

Surprisingly, a good fit can be obtained by an order of magnitude reduction of $`\alpha _0`$, to $`\alpha _0=0.2`$, assuming an isotropic matrix element. This difference in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0^{\prime \prime }=\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }_0`$ for ARPES and tunneling suggests, not for the first time,Franz:1998a  that the scattering rate in ARPES is considerably higher than in tunneling. The explanation for this remarkable difference goes beyond our current understanding of ARPES and tunneling.

The van Hove singularity of the B band is shifted closer to the Fermi level as a result of band renormalization by a factor $`(1+\lambda )^1`$. Furthermore, the energy dependence of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0^{\prime \prime }`$ leads to a broadening which is more important at higher energies. At negative bias this results in a coherence peak followed by the broadened van Hove singularity of the B band. However, the energy shift of this van Hove singularity as a function of doping is too small compared to the broad feature in the background (see Section III.1). Of course one can question the validity of the assumption $`\text{Re}\mathrm{\Sigma }_0=\lambda \omega `$ at energies above $`50`$ meV,Johnson:2001  meaning that the van Hove singularity of the B band is at too low binding energy in our simulations. Taking this into account would probably lead to a better agreement with the broad maximum in the background, shifting away from the Fermi level with underdoping. However, this behavior is inconsistent with the sharpness of the dip when the van Hove singularity is at much higher binding energy than the dip (as is specifically the case for the optimally and underdoped samples).

### III.3 Coupling to a collective mode

So far, it has not been established whether the coupling of quasiparticles to the collective mode observed in neutron scattering experiments, is sufficient to have a sizable influence on the spectral functionsAbanov:2002  or not.Kee:2002  In the following analysis we assume it is, and verify to which extent the tunneling spectra are consistent with neutron scattering data on the $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ mode.

In this model \[Eq. (7)\], the main effect of the resonant mode is to enhance the imaginary part $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\prime \prime }`$ of the self energy between the energies $`\epsilon _1=\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ and $`\epsilon _2=\mathrm{\Omega }\sqrt{\epsilon _{\text{vHs}}^2+\mathrm{\Delta }_0^2}`$, where $`\epsilon _{\text{vHs}}`$ is the band energy at the ($`\pi ,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$) point.Eschrig:2000  A similar effect, although much smaller, exists at positive bias. The numerical results are displayed in Fig. 3. Focusing first on curves A, which represent the DOS of the A band, we notice the sharp coherence peaks. The energy of the latter is a combination of the gap value and the van Hove singularity which, as in the previous models, lies very close to the gap edges, and contributes much to the total spectral weight of the coherence peaks. Furthermore, it is crucial for the creation of the dip-hump feature, below the coherence peak at negative bias. The width of the dip corresponds to the energy interval between $`\epsilon _1`$ and $`\epsilon _2`$ where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\prime \prime }`$ is enhanced. Below the dip, there is a hump resulting from the scattering out of the above energy interval. The mode energy deferred from neutron scattering Fong:1999 ; He:2001  results in a reasonable agreement with the dip in the tunneling spectra (see also Ref. Zasadzinski:2001, ). However, we caution that its shape is more dependent on the precise values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ and $`\epsilon _{\text{vHs}}`$ than on the mode energy itself. Furthermore, for the optimally and underdoped samples the calculated dip is at slightly higher binding energy than in the experimental data, suggesting that the mode energy is smaller than determined from neutron scattering. Finally, the depth of the dip in the experimental data indicates an increasing coupling constant $`g`$ with underdoping.

Let us now turn to the DOS of the B band. Here the coherence peaks are small and occur at $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$. The energy interval between $`\epsilon _1`$ and $`\epsilon _2`$ is much larger than for the A band, and below $`\epsilon _2`$ we see again a hump structure. The van Hove peak of the B band now appears inside the dip energy range as a very broad maximum. Comparing the curves at different dopings, we find that the broad maximum shifts away from the Fermi level with underdoping. Though this shift is smaller than suggested by experiment, it is in qualitative agreement with experiment. The only disagreement occurs at higher binding energies, where the hump coming from the B band is not observed in experiment. This hump is probably smeared out by the continuum of spin excitations at higher energies,Eschrig:2002  not taken into account here.

In Fig. 4 we compare experimental data to spectra calculated using different matrix elements. It is clear that the experimental spectrum at low bias shows the V-shape typical for a $`d`$-wave superconductor, and not the U-shape expected for tunneling with a completely anisotropic matrix element. Though some anisotropy is not to be excluded, the tunneling spectra are thus more consistent with isotropic than with anisotropic tunneling matrix elements that suppress all states along the diagonals of the Brillouin zone. This conclusion is independent of the exact model chosen here (it can also be witnessed from, for example, the bare DOS in Fig. 1), and only dependent on the assumption of $`d`$-wave symmetry of the order parameter and a small imaginary part of the self-energy at low energy.

## IV Summary

We have modeled scanning tunneling spectra of BSCCO including $`d`$-wave BCS superconductivity, band dispersions based on recent ARPES data (with bilayer splitting), and isotropic as well as anisotropic tunneling matrix elements. In addition to this, we have compared tunneling spectra to ARPES data via a phenomenological marginal Fermi liquid approach. In a third model, we have taken into account coupling of quasiparticles to a collective mode with momentum ($`\pi ,\pi `$). All numerical results have been compared to experimental data over a large doping range.

The simple $`d`$-wave BCS model reproduces several general characteristics of the experimental tunneling spectra, but fails to account for salient features like the dip-hump structure and the absence of a sharp van Hove singularity from the bonding band. The comparison between tunneling and ARPES suggests a much longer lifetime in tunneling experiments than in ARPES: using the marginal Fermi liquid approach, the shape of the coherence peaks in tunneling spectra is correctly reproduced, but only if the lifetime is taken an order of magnitude larger than inferred from ARPES data, an observation that remains to be explained. This model, specified for low energy, does not lead to a satisfactory description of the dip-hump structure and the asymmetric background as a function of doping. Important improvement is obtained by including the interaction of quasiparticles with a collective mode. With parameters inferred from neutron scattering experiments, reasonable agreement with the tunneling spectra is found, though the energy of the mode may be slightly overestimated for the optimally and underdoped samples.

In general, the tunneling spectra are consistent with the presence of a sharp van Hove singularity (of the antibonding band) integrated in the coherence peaks, and a broad van Hove singularity (of the bonding band) in the background, shifting away from the Fermi level with underdoping. These van Hove singularities can be held responsible for the asymmetry in tunneling spectra with respect to zero bias. The broadening of the bonding band van Hove singularity can be largely attributed to the collective mode. This mode also leads to a dip-hump feature in the spectra, which is more pronounced in the underdoped than in the overdoped samples. The exact shape and depth, however, also depend on van Hove singularity of the antibonding band and on the superconducting gap.

Finally, the shape of the spectra at low-bias voltage is indicative of an isotropic tunneling matrix element. We conclude that the tunneling matrix element does not have a strong dependence on the (in-plane) wave vector. Tunneling spectroscopy therefore probes states along the whole Fermi surface, including the diagonals of the Brillouin zone.

###### Acknowledgements.

We acknowledge A. A. Manuel for programming assistance, Ch. Renner for sharing his long experience in tunneling spectroscopy, and G. A. Sawatzky for his repeatedly questioning about tunneling matrix elements. This work has been supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The quest for the parameters of the primordial Universe has significantly advanced in the last 10 years. There is a general agreement that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m0.3`$, for example from the internal kinematics of clusters and groups , from the gas fraction in clusters  and groups . Supernovae used as standard candles have led to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }>0`$, with a degeneracy with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$. Finally, the scales of the angular fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) lead to a nearly perfectly flat Universe $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m+\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=1`$. The combination of constraints from supernovae and the CMB recovers $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m0.3`$ (with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }0.3`$).

We present below a measurement of the cosmological parameters, with a fairly new technique based upon using very large scale structures ($`>100\mathrm{Mpc}`$ in size) as comoving standard rulers.

## 2 Very large-scale structures should follow the Hubble flow

Very large-scale structures should follow the Hubble flow. The rms peculiar velocity within a ball of radius $`R`$ is given by

$$v_{\mathrm{rms}}^2\left(R\right)=\frac{1}{2\pi ^2}\left(Hf\right)^2_0^{\mathrm{}}\stackrel{~}{W}^2\left(kR\right)P\left(k\right)𝑑k,$$
(1)
where for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$ or for flat Universes, $`f\mathrm{\Omega }_m^{0.6}`$, while $`P\left(k\right)`$ is the primordial density fluctuation spectrum,111We adopt, as the observers, the high definition of $`P(k)`$ ($`[2\pi ]^3`$ higher than the low one). and $`\stackrel{~}{W}\left(x\right)=3\left(\mathrm{sin}xx\mathrm{cos}x\right)/x^3`$ is the Fourier transform of the top-hat smoothing kernel. Eq. (1) leads to a present-day value $`v_{\mathrm{rms},0}<330\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ for $`R>100h^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$. Since the peculiar velocity increases with time, one simply finds that the peculiar motion satisfies $`\delta R<v_{\mathrm{rms},0}t_0=3.3h^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$, so that peculiar motions account for less than 3% for structures larger than $`100h^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$. Thus, VLSS follow the Hubble expansion to good precision, or, in other words, *very large scale structures should be comoving standard rulers*.

## 3 Is their a specific scale for very large scale structures?

Since the report  of a redshift periodicity of structures on the scale of $`130h^1\mathrm{Mpc}=2\pi /\left(0.048h\mathrm{Mpc}^1\right)`$, the existence of a preferred scale for very large scale structures, has been a matter of debate.

As seen in Table 1, whereas many authors find significant peaks and dips in $`P\left(k\right)`$, measured from large surveys, they do not agree on their positions. In what follows, we will assume that there *is* a feature (peak or dip) in $`P\left(k\right)`$, which should lead to a quasi-periodic signal in the space distribution that is essentially frozen in comoving space.

## 4 The comoving standard ruler applied to quasars

After previous attempts  on a low spectral resolution survey of quasars , we have analyzed the 2dF quasar sample, called 2QZ-10k , publicly made available in the Spring of 2001. After discarding poorly sampled regions (where the survey completeness was less than 80%), leaving us with 2378 quasars, we computed the spatial two-point correlation function of the quasars in 3 redshift bins ($`z=[0.6,1.1],[1.1,1.6],[1.6,2.1]`$), looking for features at the same comoving separations. The correlation functions were estimated as  $`\xi \left(r\right)=\left[\text{DD}2\text{DR}/n+\text{RR}/n^2\right]/\left(\text{RR}/n^2\right)`$, where DD, DR and RR indicate the number of data-data, data-random, and random-random quasar pairs respectively. We avoided redshift selection effects (emission lines will be visible in some intervals of redshift), by constructing our random catalogs with random angular positions, but redshifts obtained by scrambling the distribution in the dataset. The correlation functions were smoothed with a $`15h^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$ gaussian.

We then repeated the exercise for $`21\times 21`$ pairs of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda })`$, since the separation of two quasars depends on their angular separation and their two redshifts in a non-trivial function of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$.

Only in the region $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=1.4\mathrm{\Omega }+0.15\pm 0.35`$ did we obtain strong peaks in the correlation functions. Figure 1  illustrates the subregion — the vertical ellipse centered on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.25\pm 0.15`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.65\pm 0.35`$ (95% confidence) — where the peaks (at separation $`r=244h^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$) in the correlation function are at the same comoving separation in the three redshift bins. *This appears to be the strongest joint constraint on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ from a single survey.*

Figure 1 also displays the constraints on quintessence for the flat case ($`w_Q=1`$ in the standard model), and we find $`w_Q<0.35`$ (95% confidence).

As a caveat, we have computed the expected correlation function from the power spectrum of , which we have padded with a CMBFAST calculation with $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda },\mathrm{\Omega }_b,h,\sigma _8)=(0.3,0.7,0.1,0.6,0.9)`$ that fits well their $`P\left(k\right)`$, using the relation

$$\xi \left(r\right)=\frac{1}{2\pi ^2}_0^{\mathrm{}}k^2P\left(k\right)\frac{\mathrm{sin}\left(kr\right)}{kr}𝑑k.$$
(2)
We find oscillations in the $`15h^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$ gaussian smoothed correlation function that are 25 times smaller than found by . We check this by considering a feature in $`P\left(k\right)`$ at wavenumber $`k_0`$ that has amplitude $`L^3`$ and width $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ decades in $`\mathrm{log}k`$. If $`\mathrm{\Delta }1`$, Eq. (2) yields $`\xi \mathrm{ln}10/\left(2\pi ^2\right)\left(k_0L\right)^3\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{sin}\left(k_0r\right)/\left(k_0r\right)`$. If $`\xi \left(r\right)\mathrm{sin}\left(k_0r\right)/\left(k_0r\right)`$ has a secondary maximum at $`k_0r_0=5\pi /2`$, then $`L^3\mathrm{\Delta }=8\xi \left(r_0\right)r_0^3/\left(25\mathrm{ln}10\right)`$. For $`r_0=244h^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$ and $`\xi \left(r_0\right)0.03`$ , we need $`L^3\mathrm{\Delta }6\times 10^4h^3\mathrm{Mpc}^3=1.5P\left(k_0\right)`$. So if the spike is, say, one-tenth of a decade wide, we need to locally boost $`P\left(k\right)`$ by a factor 15, whereas the measured peak  is only a factor 2 above the interpolated $`P\left(k\right)`$.

It seems clear that there is an inconsistency between these two analyses, and we are presently redoing our analysis of $`\xi \left(r\right)`$ from 2QZ-10k to resolve this question. Whether $`\xi \left(r\right)`$ or $`P\left(k\right)`$ is the better tool for detecting comoving standard rulers across distinct redshift intervals remains an open question.

Acknowledgements.  We thank Jim Fry for helpful discussions on power spectra.


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# 1 Universality classes of fermionic vacua

## 1 Universality classes of fermionic vacua

### 1.1 Fermion zero modes of quantum vacuum

All known elementary particles and gauge bosons are either massless or have the mass which is extremely small compared to the Planck energy scale. This suggests that all the particles and fields originate from the fermionic or bosonic zero modes of the quantum vacuum. If so, our goal must be to describe and classify the possible zero modes of quantum vacua and their interactions. This does not require the knowledge of the exact ‘microscopic’ (trans-Planckian) structure of the quantum vacuum and can be done on the phenomenological grounds.

The classification of quantum vacua in terms of their zero modes is simplified if we assume that only fermions are fundamental, while the bosons are composite representing the collective modes of the fermionic quantum vacuum. As distinct from the symmetry classification of the vacuum states, it is the topology of the propagator of the fermionic field which distinguishes between different quantum vacua. The fermionic vacua and their fermion zero modes are thus distributed into universality classes protected by momentum space topology. If the space dimension is D=3 and if we consider only translationally invariant vacua, there are only two universality classes of fermion zero modes which are protected by topology. The topologically stable zeros of the fermionic energy spectrum form in the 3D momentum space the manifolds of either co-dimension 1 or co-dimension 3. The universality class corresponding to co-dimension 1 contains the vacua whose fermion zero modes form the 2D surface in the 3D momentum space – the Fermi surface. The class of co-dimension 3 contains the vacua whose fermion zero modes are concentrated near the distinguished topologically stable points in the 3D momentum space – the Fermi points.

The elementary particles of our quantum vacuum originate from the massless chiral Weyl fermions of the Standard Model, left and right quarks and lepton. The Weyl fermions are typical representatives of the fermion zero modes of co-dimension 3. The Hamiltonian for the $`a`$-th chiral fermionic species is

$$_a=cC_a\sigma ^ip_i,$$
(1)
where $`C_a=\pm 1`$ is the chirality of the fermion. This Hamiltonian vanishes at the point $`𝐩=0`$ in 3D momentum space.

### 1.2 Momentum space topological invariant for Fermi point

To characterize this singular point in the 3D momentum space (or any other manifold of zeros of co-dimension 3) let us introduce a somewhat more general $`2\times 2`$ Hamiltonian which does not obey the Lorentz invariance:

$$=\sigma ^iM_i(𝐩).$$
(2)
Here $`𝐌`$ is an arbitrary function of the momentum $`𝐩`$. The vector field $`𝐌(𝐩)`$ can have hedgehogs – the points where $`|𝐌(𝐩)|=0`$ and thus the fermionic energy $`E^2(𝐩)=|𝐌(𝐩)|^2=0`$. Such a point is topologically stable if the following integral over the 2-surface $`\sigma _2`$ around this point is non-zero:

$$N_3=\frac{1}{8\pi }e_{ijk}_{\sigma _2}𝑑S^k\frac{1}{|𝐌(𝐩)|^3}𝐌\left(\frac{𝐌}{p_i}\times \frac{𝐌}{p_j}\right).$$
(3)
In the case of chiral fermions in Eq. (1), the field $`𝐌(𝐩)=c𝐩`$ represents the hedgehog in momentum space, and the topological charge of this hedgehog coincides with the chirality of fermions, $`N_3=C_a=\pm 1`$. Invesigation of the topological properties of the Fermi points was started in 1981 for fermions on a lattice , where these points were referred to as generic degeneracy points, and in 1982 in superfluid 3He-A  where they were called boojums on Fermi surface. According to Abrikosov and Beneslavskii  and Nielsen and Ninomiya  such points can also appear in semiconductors as the crossing (diabolic) points of two energy bands. In condensed matter examples the spin is effective: the Pauli matrices $`\sigma ^i`$ act in the space of two crossing bands.

## 2 Emergent relativistic quantum field theory

### 2.1 Emergence of chiral fermions, gauge field and gravity

The Fermi points with the elementary topological charge, $`N_3=\pm 1`$, have a remarkable property. Near such a point $`p_i^{(a)}`$ the vector field $`𝐌(𝐩)`$ and the Hamiltonian have the following general form:

$$M_n(𝐩)e_n^i(p_ip_i^{(a)}),_a=e_n^i\sigma ^n(p_ip_i^{(a)}).$$
(4)
After the shift of the momentum and the diagonalization of the $`3\times 3`$ matrix $`e_n^i`$, one again obtains $`_a=C_ac\sigma ^ip_i`$, where the chirality $`C_a`$ is determined by the sign of the determinant of the matrix $`e_n^i`$. This means that fermions near such a Fermi point are always the Weyl fermions – the relativistic chiral fermions – even if the original system is not relativistic. The quantities $`e_n^i`$ (or the effective metric $`g^{ik}=_ne_n^ie_n^k`$) and $`p_i^{(a)}`$ emerging at low energy are dynamical variables characterizing the bosonic collective modes of the fermionic vacuum. They interact with chiral fermions as the effective gravity and gauge field, respectively.

Thus the relativistic invariance, the chirality of fermions, the gauge and gravity fields, and also the relativistic spin are the emergent low-energy properties of the quantum vacuum with fermion zero mode of co-dimension 3, if its topological charge is elementary, $`N_3=+1`$ or $`N_3=1`$.

### 2.2 Role of discrete symmetries:
emergence of parity and non-Abelian local symmetry

What happens if the topological charge of the Fermi point is not elementary? For instance, the positions of two Fermi points with the charges $`N_3=1`$ and $`N_3=+1`$ can coincide, so that the total topological charge of the singular point is trivial, $`N_3=0`$. It appears that all the above properties of the emerging relativistic quantum field theory will survive if there is some discrete symmetry between these two fermionic species which protects zeros of the Hamiltonian. In the low-energy ‘relativistic’ limit this discrete symmetry manifests itself as the space parity $`\mathrm{P}`$ which transforms the left-handed fermion to the right-handed one. If this discrete symmetry is violated or spontaneously broken, the zeros in momentum space are protected neither by topology nor by symmetry; zeros disappear which means that in the relativistic low-energy limit the fermion zero modes acquire the Dirac mass. Such situation occurs in the Standard Model and in the so-called planar phase of superfluid 3He. In the planar phase, the corresponding space parity $`\mathrm{P}`$ of the low-energy fermions is effective: it evolves from some approximate internal symmetry of the ‘high-energy’ atomic physics of the quantum liquid.

Another important role of discrete symmetries shows up if we consider the Fermi point with the multiple charge, say $`N_3=+2`$. If there is a proper discrete symmetry between the fermions, the singular point becomes the combination of two elementary Fermi points describing two right-handed fermionic species coupled by this symmetry. In this case the effective relativistic invariance is not distorted, but in addition one finds that the double degenerate Fermi point generates the effective non-Abelian gauge field. Since the positions $`𝐩^{(1)}`$ and $`𝐩^{(2)}`$ of constituent Fermi points with $`N_3=+1`$ can oscillate separately, the $`4\times 4`$ Hamiltonian for two fermionic species becomes

$$=e_n^i\sigma ^n(p_iA_i\tau _bA_i^b).$$
(5)
Here $`\tau _b`$ is the Pauli matrix in the isotopic space of two species of fermion zero modes, and the new collective mode $`A_i^b`$ plays the role of the Yang-Mills field. Such situation occurs in the Standard Model and in the superfluid 3He-A. The higher discrete symmetry groups of the Fermi points can generate the higher-order effective local symmetry in the fermionic sector. For example the Fermi point with $`N_3=+4`$ and with the discrete symmetry $`Z_4`$ or $`Z_2\times Z_2`$ will lead to the local $`SU(4)`$ symmetry in the low-energy corner.

According to Eq. (5), in the vicinity of Fermi points the fermionic sector acquires the local $`U(1)`$ and non-Abelian symmetry groups, and also the general covariance. This, however, does not imply that such symmetries will automatically emerge in the bosonic sector, i.e. in the effective action for the collective fields $`A_i`$, $`A_i^b`$ and $`e_n^i`$. But this is possible at least in principle, since the corresponding action for the bosonic fields come from the integration over the fermionic fields in the same manner as in Sakharov’s induced gravity . The problem is that because of the ultraviolet divergences the bosonic action is generated not only by fermion zero modes but also by the high-energy degrees of freedom of the fermionic vacuum which are not necessarily Lorentz invariant (see the detailed discussion in Ref. ).

### 2.3 Chiral anomaly

There are some properties of the quantum vacuum which do not depend on whether the bosonic sector of the effective theory has all the symmetries of the fermionic sector or not. An example is provided by the chiral anomaly, which is completely determined by the spectral flow through the Fermi point and thus by its momentum space topology. The fermionic charge $`B`$ produced per unit time per unit volume from the vacuum in the presence of the effective magnetic and electric fields is given by the following generalization of the equation derived by Adler  and Bell and Jackiw  for axial anomaly:

$$\dot{B}=\frac{1}{16\pi ^2}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }\underset{a}{}N_{3a}B_aq_a^2.$$
(6)
Here $`q_a`$ is the charge of the $`a`$-th fermion with respect to the effective gauge field $`F^{\mu \nu }`$; $`F^{\mu \nu }=(1/2)e^{\alpha \beta \mu \nu }F_{\alpha \beta }`$ is the dual field strength; and $`N_{3a}`$ is the topological charge of the Fermi point. This relativistic, gauge invariant and covariant equation is applicable to all systems with Fermi points including 3He-A where the bosonic sector certainly does not obey these symmetries. In 3He-A the Adler–Bell–Jackiw equation has been verified in experiments with continuous vortex-skyrmions .

## 3 Vacuum energy

The fermion zero modes of quantum vacuum can say nothing on the microscopic properties of the quantum vacuum, such as the value of the vacuum energy and thus of the cosmological constant $`\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. The naive estimation of the vacuum energy density, as the zero-point energy $`(1/2)E(p)`$ of bosonic modes plus the negative energy of fermion modes in the Dirac sea, gives

$$\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }\sqrt{g}=\frac{1}{V}\left(\nu _{\mathrm{bosons}}\underset{𝐩}{}\frac{1}{2}cp\nu _{\mathrm{fermions}}\underset{𝐩}{}cp\right),$$
(7)
where $`V`$ is the volume of the system; $`\nu _{\mathrm{bosons}}`$ and and $`\nu _{\mathrm{fermions}}`$ is the number of bosonic and fermionic zero modes. Because of the ultraviolet divergence this estimate is in a huge disagreement with observations which is known as the cosmological constant problem.

To calculate the real energy of the vacuum state one must know the ultraviolet (microscopic) structure of the given vacuum. We have no information on our quantum vacuum, but we can consider as a guide the well known quantum vacua of the same universality class. The result is rather unexpected and so general that it can be applicable to any vacuum. It appears that the contribution of zero modes in Eq. (7) is completely cancelled by the contribution from all other microscopic degrees of freedom without any fine tuning. Applying this to our vacuum one may conclude that the equilibrium quantum vacuum does not gravitate.

This cancellation is the result of the local stability of the vacuum state, and it is exact if the vacuum is not perturbed. The vacuum responds to perturbations, and the energy density of the perturbed vacuum is on the order of the energy density of perturbations. Thus the cosmological constant is not a constant at all but is the dynamical quantity which is either continuously or in a stepwise manner adjusted to perturbations. Since all the perturbations of the vacuum in the present Universe (gravitating matter, expansion, curvature, non-zero temperature, inhomegeneity, etc.) have energy scales much lower than the Planck scale, our vacuum is extremely close to the local equilibrium, and thus the dark energy today is extremely small.

What happens if a phase transition occurs in which the symmetry of the vacuum is broken, as is supposed to happen in the early Universe when, say, the electroweak symmetry was broken? In the effective theory, such a transition must be accompanied by a change of the vacuum energy, which means that the vacuum must have a huge energy either above or below the phase transition. However, the exact microscopic theory suggests the phase transition does not disturb the zero value of the vacuum energy. After the vacuum relaxes to a new equilibrium state, its energy density will be zero again. The energy change is completely compensated by the change of the internal (microscopic) quantities characterizing the microscopic structure of the vacuum. In the quantum vacuum of quantum liquids this is the chemical potential and density of the atoms of the liquid .

## 4 Other systems

We considered here the effective theory of fermion zero modes emerging in the low-energy corner of the quantum vacuum belonging to the universality class of the co-dimension 3. This class is of special interest because the corresponding effective theory is the quantum field theory of chiral fermions interacting with gauge fields and gravity. However, in the condensed matter physics the more popular is the universality class of the co-dimension 1. It contains the Fermi liquids with Fermi surfaces. The effective theory of such vacua has been constructed by Landau  and is known now as the Landau theory of Fermi liquids. A similar effective theory emerges for fermion zero modes in the core of quantized vortices; in the mixed state of superconductors; and in relativistic theories in the presence of strong fields, for instance, in the vicinity and beyond the black-hole horizon. In multi-dimensional systems the higher universality classes are also topologically protected, such as the class of co-dimension 5; in addition the fermion zero modes of the co-dimension 3 appear on branes, and all the properties of the relativstic quantum field theory emerge for the brane matter at low energy. In the systems with even space dimension the fully gapped vacua also have non-trivial momentum space topology, which leads to quantization of physical parameters, and other exotic phenomena. Discussion of all these universality classes of quantum vacua can be found in Ref. .


text:
# 1 Abstract

## 1 Abstract

The random matrix ensembles are applied to the quantum statistical systems. The quantum systems are studied using the finite dimensional real, complex and quaternion Hilbert spaces of the eigenfunctions. The linear operators describing the systems act on these Hilbert spaces and they are treated as random matrices in generic bases of the eigenfunctions. The random eigenproblems are presented and solved. Examples of random operators are presented with connection to physical problems.

## 2 Introduction

Random Matrix Theory RMT studies quantum Hamiltonian operators $`H`$ which are random matrix variables. Their matrix elements $`H_{ij}`$ are independent random scalar variables . There were studied among others the following Gaussian Random Matrix ensembles GRME: orthogonal GOE, unitary GUE, symplectic GSE, as well as circular ensembles: orthogonal COE, unitary CUE, and symplectic CSE. The choice of ensemble is based on quantum symmetries ascribed to the Hamiltonian $`H`$. The Hamiltonian $`H`$ acts on quantum space $`V`$ of eigenfunctions. It is assumed that $`V`$ is $`N`$-dimensional Hilbert space $`V=𝐅^N`$, where the real, complex, or quaternion field $`𝐅=𝐑,𝐂,𝐇`$, corresponds to GOE, GUE, or GSE, respectively. If the Hamiltonian matrix $`H`$ is hermitean $`H=H^{}`$, then the probability density function of $`H`$ reads:

$`f_{}(H)=𝒞_{H\beta }\mathrm{exp}[\beta {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{Tr}(H^2)],`$ (1)
$`𝒞_{H\beta }=({\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{2\pi }})^{𝒩_{H\beta }/2},`$
$`𝒩_{H\beta }=N+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}N(N1)\beta ,`$
$`{\displaystyle f_{}(H)𝑑H}=1,`$
$`dH={\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{ji}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\gamma =0}{\overset{D1}{}}}dH_{ij}^{(\gamma )},`$
$`H_{ij}=(H_{ij}^{(0)},\mathrm{},H_{ij}^{(D1)})𝐅,`$
where the parameter $`\beta `$ assume values $`\beta =1,2,4,`$ for GOE($`N`$), GUE($`N`$), GSE($`N`$), respectively, and $`𝒩_{H\beta }`$ is number of independent matrix elements of hermitean Hamiltonian $`H`$. The Hamiltonian $`H`$ belongs to Lie group of hermitean $`N\times N𝐅`$-matrices, and the matrix Haar’s measure $`dH`$ is invariant under transformations from the unitary group U($`N`$, F). The eigenenergies $`E_i,i=1,\mathrm{},N`$, of $`H`$, are real-valued random variables $`E_i=E_i^{}`$. It was Eugene Wigner who firstly dealt with eigenenergy level repulsion phenomenon studying nuclear spectra . RMT is applicable now in many branches of physics: nuclear physics (slow neutron resonances, highly excited complex nuclei), condensed phase physics (fine metallic particles, random Ising model \[spin glasses\]), quantum chaos (quantum billiards, quantum dots), disordered mesoscopic systems (transport phenomena), quantum chromodynamics, quantum gravity, field theory.

## 3 The Ginibre ensembles

Jean Ginibre considered another example of GRME dropping the assumption of hermiticity of Hamiltonians thus defining generic $`𝐅`$-valued Hamiltonian $`K`$ . Hence, $`K`$ belong to general linear Lie group GL($`N`$, F), and the matrix Haar’s measure $`dK`$ is invariant under transformations form that group. The distribution of $`K`$ is given by:

$`f_𝒦(K)=𝒞_{K\beta }\mathrm{exp}[\beta {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{Tr}(K^{}K)],`$ (2)
$`𝒞_{K\beta }=({\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{2\pi }})^{𝒩_{K\beta }/2},`$
$`𝒩_{K\beta }=N^2\beta ,`$
$`{\displaystyle f_𝒦(K)𝑑K}=1,`$
$`dK={\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\gamma =0}{\overset{D1}{}}}dK_{ij}^{(\gamma )},`$
$`K_{ij}=(K_{ij}^{(0)},\mathrm{},K_{ij}^{(D1)})𝐅,`$
where $`\beta =1,2,4`$, stands for real, complex, and quaternion Ginibre ensembles, respectively. Therefore, the eigenenergies $`Z_i`$ of quantum system ascribed to Ginibre ensemble are complex-valued random variables. The eigenenergies $`Z_i,i=1,\mathrm{},N`$, of nonhermitean Hamiltonian $`K`$ are not real-valued random variables $`Z_iZ_i^{}`$. Jean Ginibre postulated the following joint probability density function of random vector of complex eigenvalues $`Z_1,\mathrm{},Z_N`$ for $`N\times N`$ Hamiltonian matrices $`K`$ for $`\beta =2`$ :

$`P(z_1,\mathrm{},z_N)=`$ (3)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi j!}}{\displaystyle \underset{i<j}{\overset{N}{}}}|z_iz_j|^2\mathrm{exp}({\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}}|z_j|^2),`$
where $`z_i`$ are complex-valued sample points ($`z_i𝐂`$).

We emphasize here Wigner and Dyson’s electrostatic analogy. A Coulomb gas of $`N`$ unit charges moving on complex plane (Gauss’s plane) C is considered. The vectors of positions of charges are $`z_i`$ and potential energy of the system is:

$$U(z_1,\mathrm{},z_N)=\underset{i<j}{}\mathrm{ln}|z_iz_j|+\frac{1}{2}\underset{i}{}|z_i^2|.$$
(4)
If gas is in thermodynamical equilibrium at temperature $`T=\frac{1}{2k_B}`$ ($`\beta =\frac{1}{k_BT}=2`$, $`k_B`$ is Boltzmann’s constant), then probability density function of vectors of positions is $`P(z_1,\mathrm{},z_N)`$ Eq. (3). Therefore, complex eigenenergies $`Z_i`$ of quantum system are analogous to vectors of positions of charges of Coulomb gas. Moreover, complex-valued spacings $`\mathrm{\Delta }^1Z_i`$ of complex eigenenergies of quantum system:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }^1Z_i=Z_{i+1}Z_i,i=1,\mathrm{},(N1),$$
(5)
are analogous to vectors of relative positions of electric charges. Finally, complex-valued second differences $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2Z_i`$ of complex eigenenergies:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }^2Z_i=Z_{i+2}2Z_{i+1}+Z_i,i=1,\mathrm{},(N2),$$
(6)
are analogous to vectors of relative positions of vectors of relative positions of electric charges.

The eigenenergies $`Z_i=Z(i)`$ can be treated as values of function $`Z`$ of discrete parameter $`i=1,\mathrm{},N`$. The ”Jacobian” of $`Z_i`$ reads:

$$\mathrm{Jac}Z_i=\frac{Z_i}{i}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^1Z_i}{\mathrm{\Delta }^1i}=\mathrm{\Delta }^1Z_i.$$
(7)
We readily have, that the spacing is an discrete analog of Jacobian, since the indexing parameter $`i`$ belongs to discrete space of indices $`iI=\{1,\mathrm{},N\}`$. Therefore, the first derivative with respect to $`i`$ reduces to the first differential quotient. The Hessian is a Jacobian applied to Jacobian. We immediately have the formula for discrete ”Hessian” for the eigenenergies $`Z_i`$:

$$\mathrm{Hess}Z_i=\frac{^2Z_i}{i^2}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^2Z_i}{\mathrm{\Delta }^1i^2}=\mathrm{\Delta }^2Z_i.$$
(8)
Thus, the second difference of $`Z`$ is discrete analog of Hessian of $`Z`$. One emphasizes that both ”Jacobian” and ”Hessian” work on discrete index space $`I`$ of indices $`i`$. The spacing is also a discrete analog of energy slope whereas the second difference corresponds to energy curvature with respect to external parameter $`\lambda `$ describing parametric “evolution” of energy levels . The finite differences of order higher than two are discrete analogs of compositions of ”Jacobians” with ”Hessians” of $`Z`$.

The eigenenergies $`E_i,iI`$, of the hermitean Hamiltonian $`H`$ are ordered increasingly real-valued random variables. They are values of discrete function $`E_i=E(i)`$. The first difference of adjacent eigenenergies is:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }^1E_i=E_{i+1}E_i,i=1,\mathrm{},(N1),$$
(9)
are analogous to vectors of relative positions of electric charges of one-dimensional Coulomb gas. It is simply the spacing of two adjacent energies. Real-valued second differences $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2E_i`$ of eigenenergies:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }^2E_i=E_{i+2}2E_{i+1}+E_i,i=1,\mathrm{},(N2),$$
(10)
are analogous to vectors of relative positions of vectors of relative positions of charges of one-dimensional Coulomb gas. The $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2Z_i`$ have their real parts $`\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Delta }^2Z_i`$, and imaginary parts $`\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Delta }^2Z_i`$, as well as radii (moduli) $`|\mathrm{\Delta }^2Z_i|`$, and main arguments (angles) $`\mathrm{Arg}\mathrm{\Delta }^2Z_i`$. $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2Z_i`$ are extensions of real-valued second differences:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }^2E_i=E_{i+2}2E_{i+1}+E_i,i=1,\mathrm{},(N2),$$
(11)
of adjacent ordered increasingly real-valued eigenenergies $`E_i`$ of Hamiltonian $`H`$ defined for GOE, GUE, GSE, and Poisson ensemble PE (where Poisson ensemble is composed of uncorrelated randomly distributed eigenenergies) . The Jacobian and Hessian operators of energy function $`E(i)=E_i`$ for these ensembles read:

$$\mathrm{Jac}E_i=\frac{E_i}{i}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^1E_i}{\mathrm{\Delta }^1i}=\mathrm{\Delta }^1E_i,$$
(12)
and

$$\mathrm{Hess}E_i=\frac{^2E_i}{i^2}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^2E_i}{\mathrm{\Delta }^1i^2}=\mathrm{\Delta }^2E_i.$$
(13)
The treatment of first and second differences of eigenenergies as discrete analogs of Jacobians and Hessians allows one to consider these eigenenergies as a magnitudes with statistical properties studied in discrete space of indices. The labelling index $`i`$ of the eigenenergies is an additional variable of ”motion”, hence the space of indices $`I`$ augments the space of dynamics of random magnitudes.


text:
# Light Relic Neutralinos

## I Introduction

Most works on relic neutralinos consider supersymmetric schemes with a unification assumption for the gaugino masses $`M_i`$ ($`i=1,2,3`$) at the GUT scale $`M_{GUT}10^{16}`$ GeV. This hypothesis implies that at lower scales the following relations hold:

$$M_1:M_2:M_3=\alpha _1:\alpha _2:\alpha _3,$$
(1)
where the $`\alpha _i`$ ($`i=1,2,3`$) are the coupling constants of the three Standard Model gauge groups. In particular, at the electroweak scale, $`M_{EW}100`$ GeV, $`M_1`$ and $`M_2`$ are related by the expression:

$$M_1=\frac{5}{3}\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _WM_20.5M_2.$$
(2)
However, there are theoretical arguments for considering supersymmetric schemes where the unification assumption on gaugino masses is not satisfiednonunif .

In the present paper we analyse properties of relic neutralinos in an effective Minimal Supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (MSSM) where the GUT relation of Eq. (2) is relaxed. Previous papers where supersymmetric schemes without gaugino masses unification have been considered in connection with relic neutralinos include the ones reported in Refs. dt ; gr ; mny ; go ; bbd ; cn ; ads ; cerdeno ; bk ; bbb ; bno ; bhn . Here we evaluate the neutralino relic abundance $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^2`$ and the neutralino-nucleon scalar cross-section $`\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$, which is relevant to dark matter direct detection. In Sect.II we define the supersymmetric scheme adopted in the present paper and in Sect. III we provide analytical considerations and numerical evaluations. Our conclusions are drawn in Sect. IV.

## II Effective MSSM without gaugino unification

We employ an effective MSSM scheme (effMSSM) at the electroweak scale, defined in terms of a minimal number of parameters, only those necessary to shape the essentials of the theoretical structure of MSSM and of its particle content. The assumptions that we impose at the electroweak scale are: a) all squark soft–mass parameters are taken degenerate: $`m_{\stackrel{~}{q}_i}m_{\stackrel{~}{q}}`$; b) all slepton soft–mass parameters are taken degenerate: $`m_{\stackrel{~}{l}_i}m_{\stackrel{~}{l}}`$; c) all trilinear parameters are set to zero except those of the third family, which are defined in terms of a common dimensionless parameter $`A`$: $`A_{\stackrel{~}{b}}=A_{\stackrel{~}{t}}Am_{\stackrel{~}{q}}`$ and $`A_{\stackrel{~}{\tau }}Am_{\stackrel{~}{l}}`$. As a consequence, the supersymmetric parameter space consists of the following independent parameters: $`M_2,\mu ,\mathrm{tan}\beta ,m_A,m_{\stackrel{~}{q}},m_{\stackrel{~}{l}},A`$ and $`RM_1/M_2`$. In the previous list of parameters we have denoted by $`\mu `$ the Higgs mixing mass parameter, by $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ the ratio of the two Higgs v.e.v.’s and by $`m_A`$ the mass of the CP-odd neutral Higgs boson.

This scheme differs from the effMSSM which we employed for instance in Ref. pinningetc  in the fact that we are relaxing here the gaugino unification relation, which was instead assumed in our previous works. The presence of the extra $`R`$ parameter accounts for this fact.

The neutralino is defined as the lowest–mass linear superposition of bino $`\stackrel{~}{B}`$, wino $`\stackrel{~}{W}^{(3)}`$ and of the two higgsino states $`\stackrel{~}{H}_1^{}`$, $`\stackrel{~}{H}_2^{}`$:

$$\chi a_1\stackrel{~}{B}+a_2\stackrel{~}{W}^{(3)}+a_3\stackrel{~}{H}_1^{}+a_4\stackrel{~}{H}_2^{}.$$
(3)
Due to well-known properties of the neutralino and chargino mass matrices, one has that: a) for $`\mu M_1,M_2`$ the neutralino mass is determined by the lightest gaugino mass parameter: $`m_\chi \mathrm{min}(M_1,M_2)`$, while the lightest chargino mass is set by $`M_2`$: $`m_{\chi ^\pm }M_2`$ ($`M_1`$ does not enter the chargino mass matrix at tree–level); b) for $`\mu M_1,M_2`$ both the neutralino and the chargino masses are primarily set by the Higgs mixing parameter: $`m_\chi \mu m_{\chi ^\pm }`$.

LEP data put a stringent lower bound on the chargino mass: $`m_{\chi ^\pm }>103`$ GeV, which converts into lower bounds on $`M_2`$ and $`\mu `$: $`M_2,\mu >`$ 103 GeV. This implies a lower bound on the neutralino mass of the order of about 50 GeV in the standard effMSSM, where the GUT relation of Eq.(2) holds. On the contrary, the neutralino mass may be smaller when $`M_1M_2`$, thus for small values of the parameter $`R`$.

In the present paper we are interested in the phenomenology of light neutralinos, therefore we consider values of $`R`$ lower than its GUT value: $`R_{GUT}0.5`$. For definiteness we will consider the range: 0.01 - 0.5. The ensuing light neutralinos have a dominant bino component; a deviation from a pure bino composition is mainly due to a mixture of $`\stackrel{~}{B}`$ with $`\stackrel{~}{H}_1^{}`$, as will be shown in Sect.III.2.

In our numerical analysis we have varied the MSSM parameters within the following ranges: $`1\mathrm{tan}\beta 50`$, $`100\mathrm{GeV}|\mu |,M_2,m_{\stackrel{~}{q}},m_{\stackrel{~}{l}}1000\mathrm{GeV}`$, $`\mathrm{sign}(\mu )=1,1`$, $`90\mathrm{GeV}m_A1000\mathrm{GeV}`$, $`3A3`$, for a sample of representative values of $`R`$ in the range $`0.01R0.5`$. This range for $`R`$, implemented with the experimental lower limit on $`M_2`$ of about 100 GeV, implies that the lower bound on the neutralino mass can be moved down to few GeV’s for $`R0.01`$.

We then implemented the following experimental constraints: accelerators data on supersymmetric and Higgs boson searches (CERN $`e^+e^{}`$ collider LEP2 LEPb  and Collider Detector CDF at Fermilab cdf ); measurements of the $`bs+\gamma `$ decay bsgamma . We wish to comment that the accelerator limits on the Higgs sector are taken into account by implementing the limits on the Higgs production cross–sections: $`e^+e^{}hZ`$ and $`e^+e^{}hA`$ ($`h`$ and $`A`$ are the lightest scalar and the pseudoscalar neutral Higgs bosons, respectively), which in turn imply a constraint on the coupling constants $`\mathrm{sin}^2(\alpha \beta )`$ and $`\mathrm{cos}^2(\alpha \beta )`$. Once these limits are applied, the absolute lower limit on the Higgs masses is $`m_A,m_h90`$ GeV. The allowed light–Higgs mass range between 90 and 114 GeV is very often overlooked in studies of neutralino dark matter, where a flat limit of 114 GeV is applied to $`m_h`$. The light–Higgs mass range, even though difficult (but not impossible) to be achieved in SUGRA models higgs ; prob ; weiglein , is nevertheless quite natural in the effMSSM and usually provides large detection rates for neutralino dark matter prob .

As for the constraint due to the muon anomalous magnetic moment $`a_\mu (g_\mu 2)/2`$ we have used the interval $`160\mathrm{\Delta }a_\mu 10^{11}680`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }a_\mu `$ is the deviation of the current world average of the experimental determinations (dominated by the measurements of Ref. amm ) from the theoretical evaluation within the Standard Model: $`\mathrm{\Delta }a_\mu a_\mu ^{\mathrm{expt}}a_\mu ^{SM}`$. The range we use for $`\mathrm{\Delta }a_\mu `$ is a 2$`\sigma `$ interval, obtained by using for the lowest-order hadronic vacuum polarization contribution an average between the results derived from the $`e^+e^{}`$ data dehz ; hmnt  and from hadronic $`\tau `$ decays dehz . The $`\mathrm{\Delta }a_\mu `$ constraint and the $`bs+\gamma `$ bound set stringent limits for the light neutralino sector of our models.

Once also the relic abundance bound $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^20.3`$ is applied (see Sect.III.2) in addition to the other experimental constraints discussed above, a lower limit of about 6 GeV is obtained for the neutralino mass in the class of models with non–universal gaugino masses considered in this paper111This is at variance with the results of Ref. boudjema , where a lower limit on the neutralino mass of 12 GeV has been deduced. Notice that the authors of Ref. boudjema  consider only the limit of very large $`m_A`$, which strongly suppresses processes which involve $`A`$–exchange, in particular the neutralino annihilation cross section. On the contrary, we are considering also the light Higgs sector, which is effective in reducing the value of the neutralino relic abundance and therefore in allowing lighter neutralinos (see Eq.(10))..

## III Neutralino relic abundance and neutralino-nucleon cross-section

### III.1 Some analytical properties for small $`m_\chi `$

The neutralino configurations which provide the highest values of direct detection rates are the ones dominated by $`(h,H)`$ Higgs-exchange processes, which in turn require a gaugino-higgsino mixing. For these configurations, also the relic abundance is regulated by a ($`A`$)Higgs-exchange diagram in the $`\chi \chi `$ annihilation cross-section.

Thus, to get an insight into the properties to be expected for our light neutralinos we limit ourselves to the following approximate expressions, derived under the assumptions of Higgs-dominance and light neutralinos (notice however that full exact expressions both for the relic abundance $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^2`$ and for the neutralino–nucleon scalar cross section $`\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$ are employed in the numerical evaluations to be discussed in the next Section). Under these hypotheses, the neutralino relic abundance is dominated by the s–wave annihilation in a $`\overline{b}b`$ pair (unless $`m_\chi `$ is very close to the $`b`$–quark mass $`m_b`$, in which case the $`\overline{c}c`$ and $`\overline{\tau }\tau `$ channel are dominant):

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^2\frac{410^{39}\mathrm{cm}^2}{\sigma _{\mathrm{ann}}v_{\mathrm{int}}}\frac{10^{37}\mathrm{cm}^2}{6\pi \alpha _{em}^2}\frac{\mathrm{sin}^4\theta _W}{\mathrm{tan}^2\beta (1+ϵ)^2}(a_2a_1\mathrm{tan}\theta _W)^2(a_4\mathrm{cos}\beta a_3\mathrm{sin}\beta )^2\frac{[(2m_\chi )^2m_A^2]^2}{m_\chi ^2[1m_b^2/m_\chi ^2]^{1/2}}\frac{m_W^2}{m_b^2},$$
(4)
and the elastic scattering cross section is:

$$\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}\frac{8G_F^2}{\pi }M_Z^2m_{\mathrm{red}}^2\left[\frac{F_hI_h}{m_h^2}+\frac{F_HI_H}{m_H^2}\right]^2.$$
(5)
In the previous equations we have used the following notations: $`\sigma _{\mathrm{ann}}v_{\mathrm{int}}`$ is the integral from present temperature up to the freeze-out temperature of the thermally averaged product of the annihilation cross-section times the relative velocity of a pair of neutralinos; $`ϵ`$ is a quantity which enters in the relationship between the down–type fermion running masses and the corresponding Yukawa couplings (see, for instance, Refs. size ; higgs  and references quoted therein); $`m_{\mathrm{red}}`$ is the neutralino-nucleon reduced mass. The quantities $`F_{h,H}`$ and $`I_{h,H}`$ are defined as follows:

$`F_h`$ $`=`$ $`(a_1\mathrm{sin}\theta _W+a_2\mathrm{cos}\theta _W)(a_3\mathrm{sin}\alpha +a_4\mathrm{cos}\alpha ),`$
$`F_H`$ $`=`$ $`(a_1\mathrm{sin}\theta _W+a_2\mathrm{cos}\theta _W)(a_3\mathrm{cos}\alpha a_4\mathrm{sin}\alpha ),`$
$`I_{h,H}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}k_q^{h,H}m_qN|\overline{q}q|N.`$ (6)
The matrix elements $`<N|\overline{q}q|N>`$ are meant over the nucleonic state. The values adopted here for $`m_q<N|\overline{q}q|N>`$ are the ones denoted by set 1 in Ref. implications . We remind that uncertainties in the values of $`m_q<N|\overline{q}q|N>`$ can give rise to an increase of the neutralino–nucleon cross section of about a factor of a few size .

The angle $`\alpha `$ rotates $`H_1^{(0)}`$ and $`H_2^{(0)}`$ into $`h`$ and $`H`$, and the coefficients $`k_q^{h,H}`$ are given by

$`k_{u\mathrm{type}}^h`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\alpha /\mathrm{sin}\beta ,`$
$`k_{d\mathrm{type}}^h`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sin}\alpha /\mathrm{cos}\beta ϵ\mathrm{cos}(\alpha \beta )\mathrm{tan}\beta ,`$
$`k_{u\mathrm{type}}^H`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sin}\alpha /\mathrm{sin}\beta ,`$
$`k_{d\mathrm{type}}^H`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\alpha /\mathrm{cos}\beta ϵ\mathrm{sin}(\alpha \beta )\mathrm{tan}\beta ,`$ (7)
for the up–type and down–type quarks, respectively.

In the discussion which follows we only wish to establish some correlations implied by the dependence of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^2`$ and of $`\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$ on the Higgs masses and the neutralino mass. For this purpose we rewrite the two previous expressions as follows:

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^2C\frac{[(2m_\chi )^2m_A^2]^2}{m_\chi ^2[1m_b^2/m_\chi ^2]^{1/2}},$$
(8)
$$\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}\frac{D}{m_h^4},$$
(9)
with obvious definitions for $`C`$ and $`D`$. Here $`m_h`$ stands generically for the mass of the one of the two CP-even neutral Higgs bosons which provides the dominant contribution to $`\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$.

We now consider the case of very light neutralinos, i.e. $`m_\chi \frac{1}{2}m_A`$. Therefore we may further simplify Eq. (8) as

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^2C\frac{m_A^4}{m_\chi ^2[1m_b^2/m_\chi ^2]^{1/2}}$$
(10)
The largest neutralino–nucleon scattering cross sections occur when both $`m_h`$ and $`m_A`$ are close to their experimental lower bound ($`m_hm_A90100`$ GeV) and $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ is relatively large, in which case also the couplings of Eqs. (6,7) between neutralinos and down–type quarks through $`h`$–exchange are sizeable higgs . In this case, from Eqs. (9) and (10) one derives the range of $`\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$ at fixed value of $`m_\chi `$ (always in the regime $`m_\chi \frac{1}{2}m_A`$):

$$\frac{CD}{m_\chi ^2[1m_b^2/m_\chi ^2]^{1/2}(\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^2)_{\mathrm{max}}}<\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}<\frac{D}{m_{h,\mathrm{min}}^4},$$
(11)
where $`m_{h,min}`$ stands for the experimental lower bound on $`m_h`$. The lower limit to $`\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$ displayed in Eq. (11) provides a stringent lower bound on $`\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$ for very light neutralinos. This feature will show up in the numerical evaluations presented in the next Section. The upper bound on $`\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$ is instead determined by the lower limit on the Higgs mass $`m_h`$.

By the arguments given above, it turns out that in the small mass regime ($`m_\chi \frac{1}{2}m_A`$) the upper bound on the relic abundance $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^20.3`$ establishes a constraint between the otherwise independent parameters $`m_\chi `$ and $`m_A`$ (see Eq.(10)).

### III.2 Numerical results

We turn now to the presentation of our numerical results. In Figs.1a1b we give the scatter plots of the quantity $`\xi \sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$ in terms of the neutralino mass for different values of the parameter $`R`$. The quantity $`\xi `$ is defined as the ratio of the local (solar neighbourhood) neutralino matter density to the total local dark matter density: $`\xi \rho _\chi /\rho _{\mathrm{loc}}`$. In Figs.1a1b we plot the quantity $`\xi \sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$, rather than simply $`\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$, in order to include in our considerations also neutralino configurations of low relic abundance (i.e. cosmologically subdominant neutralinos). We recall that, from experimental measurements of the direct detection rates, only the product $`\xi \sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$ may be extracted, and not directly $`\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$. The quantity $`\xi `$ is derived here from the relic abundance by the usual rescaling recipe: $`\xi =\mathrm{min}(1,\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^2/[\mathrm{\Omega }h^2]_{\mathrm{min}})`$, where the minimal value of relic abundance which defines a neutralino as a dominant dark matter component has been fixed at the value $`[\mathrm{\Omega }h^2]_{\mathrm{min}}=0.05`$. $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^2`$ and $`\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$ are evaluated according to the procedures and formulae described in Refs. relic ; implications .

Figs.1a1b displays quite remarkable properties of the light relic neutralinos from the point of view of their detectability by WIMP direct measurements. These properties are easily understandable in terms of the analytic arguments presented in the previous Section. For instance, in each panel at a fixed value of $`R<0.1`$, there is a characteristic funnel pointing toward high values of $`\xi \sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$ at small neutralino masses. This originates in the lower bound on $`\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$ reported in Eq.(11), which is effective only for very low neutralino masses (below about 15 GeV) and becomes more and more stringent as $`m_\chi `$ decreases. As displayed in Eq.(11), the size of this lower bound, apart from relevant supersymmetric details, is determined by the value of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^2)_{\mathrm{max}}`$, which is set here at the value $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^2)_{\mathrm{max}}=0.3`$. It is noticeable that at very small values of $`R`$, for instance at $`R=0.01`$, all supersymmetric configurations are within the cosmologically interesting range of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi `$ (i.e. no configuration of this set is rescaled) and provide large values of $`\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$ (i.e. large detection rates).

As we increase the value of $`R`$, in our scan we are accessing larger values of $`m_\chi `$: again the largest values of $`\xi \sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$ are dominated by Higgs–exchange, for Higgs masses close to their lower bound of about 90 GeV. This is also true for the annihilation cross section. This approaches its pole at $`m_\chi m_A/2`$; therefore, the largest values of $`\xi \sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$ refer to subdominant neutralinos, as $`m_\chi `$ increases toward $`m_\chi 45`$ GeV (which represents the pole in the annihilation cross section for the lightest possible $`A`$ boson). These features are clearly shown in Figs.1a1b. The panel denoted by “standard” in Fig.1b refers to the usual case of universal gaugino masses: in this case the neutralino mass is bounded from below at about 50 GeV, and therefore all the interesting low neutralino–mass sector is precluded. The last panel in Fig.1b (denoted by “global”) shows our results for $`R`$ varied in the interval $`0.010.5`$: the funnel at low masses and the effect of the $`A`$–pole in the annihilation cross section are clearly visible.

We recall that, for each panel at fixed $`R`$, the lower value of the neutralino mass is a consequence of the experimental bound on the chargino mass, which in turn fixes a lower bound on $`M_1=R\times M_2`$. The upper value on the neutralino mass for each panel is a mere consequence of the fact that we scan the $`M_2`$ parameter up to 1 TeV.

The detailed connection among the values of $`\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$ and those of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^2`$ is given in Fig. 2. The strong correlation between $`\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^2`$ displayed for $`R=0.01`$ reflects the properties of the funnel previously discussed in connection with Fig.1a. All the configurations refer to large values of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^2`$: actually, it is the upper bound on the neutralino relic abundance which determines the strong bound on the allowed configurations. By changing $`R`$ from 0.01 to larger values, we observe that the ensuing increase in $`m_\chi `$ shifts the configurations of largest $`\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$ toward lower values of relic abundance, as expected from the analitical considerations of the previous Section. From this figure we see that a fraction of the largest values of the quantity $`\xi \sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$ refer to dominant neutralinos, while another fraction refers to slightly subdominant neutralinos: $`0.01<\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^2<0.05`$. Configurations with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^2<0.01`$, even providing the largest values of the scattering cross section (see, for instance, the panel at $`R=0.04`$ in Fig. 2) suffer from a severe rescaling factor $`\xi `$ which somehow reduces their detectability.

The fact that for small values of $`R`$ the scattering and neutralino–neutralino annihilation cross sections are dominated by Higgs exchange is a consequence of two facts: the relatively small values for the lower bounds on $`m_h`$ and $`m_A`$ and the neutralino composition, which, even though dominated by the bino component, nevertheless possesses a non negligible higgsino contribution allowing the neutralino to efficiently couple with the Higgs fields.

Fig. 3 shows that for small values of $`R`$ (small $`m_\chi `$) the neutralino-neutralino annihilation cross-section is indeed dominated by Higgs-exchange diagrams, especially for the largest values of $`\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$. The first panel of Fig. 3, which refers to $`R=0.01`$, clearly shows that the annihilation cross section is strongly dominated by Higgs exchange. For $`R=0.02`$ the annihilation cross section can be either dominated by Higgs or sfermion exchange: however, the configurations which provide values of $`\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$ in excess of $`10^8`$ nbarn (denoted by crosses) show a clear Higgs dominance in the annihilation cross section. These features are progressively lost when $`R`$ increases: the annihilation cross section may be dominated by $`Z`$ exchange (which, by coincidence, has its pole also at about 45 GeV).

Finally, Fig. 4 shows that for low values of $`R`$, the neutralino composition is dominated by the bino component, but a deviation from a pure bino composition is present and is mainly due to a mixture of $`\stackrel{~}{B}`$ with $`\stackrel{~}{H}_1^0`$. The two composition parameters $`a_1^2`$ and $`a_3^2`$ remain aligned along the $`a_1^2+a_3^2=1`$ diagonal line up to $`R0.05`$, with a clear dominance (above $`70\%`$) in bino. For larger values of $`R`$ the correlation between $`a_1^2`$ and $`a_3^2`$ starts to deviate from the diagonal line, a fact that indicates how the two other components are becoming important (it is mainly $`a_4`$ which sets up). The panel at $`R=0.1`$ shows that the bino component is usually large, but a sizeable mixture starts occurring. The last panel in Fig. 4 recalls the situation for the standard case of universal gaugino masses, where the neutralino may be any mixture of its component fields.

## IV Conclusions

In the present paper we have focussed our attention on relic neutralinos of light masses: $`m_\chi <`$ 45 GeV, which are allowed in supersymmetric models where no unification of gaugino masses is assumed. We have shown that these neutralinos may have elastic cross-sections off nucleons which go up to $`\sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}10^7`$ nbarn, with a relic abundance of cosmological interest: $`0.05<\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^2<0.3`$.

The present upper limits to $`\xi \sigma _{\mathrm{scalar}}^{(\mathrm{nucleon})}`$ provided by WIMP direct detection experiments morales ; dama0 ; cdms ; edel  do not constrain the supersymmetric configurations for the light neutralinos considered here. This is especially true once the relevant uncertainties (mainly related to the form and parameters of the WIMP galactic distribution function bcfs  and to the quenching factors for bolometric detectors) are taken into account. The CDMS upper bound cdms  could concern a small fraction of supersymmetric configurations in the range around 15 GeV, though very marginally, if the uncertainties on astrophysical quantities are considered. Moreover, the CDMS bound needs a confirmation by a further running in a deep–underground site, as planned by the Collaboration.

The small–mass neutralino configurations analysed in the present paper are accessible to experiments of direct detection with a low–energy threshold and a high sensitivity. An experiment of this type is the DAMA experiment with a mass of $``$ 100 kg of NaI(Tl), whose results after a 4-years running show an annual-modulation effect at a $`4\sigma `$ C.L. which does not appear to be related to any possible source of systematics damapl . The DAMA experiment, with its high sensitivity, is potentially good to investigate also the relic neutralinos considered in the present paper.

###### Acknowledgements.

We gratefully acknowledge financial support provided by Research Grants of the Italian Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca (MIUR) and of the Università di Torino within the Astroparticle Physics Project.