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# 1 Phase diagram of (V1-x Crx)2O3 (left, after[]) and of 𝜅-(BEDT-TTF)2Cu[N(CN)2]Cl (right, after []), as a function of Cr-concentration and pressure (left), and of pressure (right).

A brief review of recent advances on the Mott transition:
unconventional transport, spectral weight transfers, and critical behaviour

A. Georgesa, S. Florensb and T.A. Costib

aLPT - Ecole Normale Supérieure 24, rue Lhomond 75231 Paris Cedex 05
and: CPHT - Ecole Polytechnique, 91128 Palaiseau Cedex; e-mail: antoine.georges@cpht.polytechnique.fr
bInstitut für Theorie der Kondensierten Materie, Universität Karlsruhe, Postfach 6980, 76128 Karlsruhe; e-mail: florens@tkm.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de (S.Florens), tac@tkm.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de (T. Costi)

Abstract. Strongly correlated metals close to the Mott transition display unusual transport regimes, together with large spectral weight transfers in optics and photoemission. We briefly review the theoretical understanding of these effects, based on the dynamical mean-field theory, and emphasize the key role played by the two energy scales associated with quasiparticle coherence scale and with the Mott gap. Recent experimental results on two-dimensional organic compounds and transition metal oxides are considered in this perspective. The liquid-gas critical behaviour at the Mott critical endpoint is also discussed. Transport calculations using the numerical renormalization group are presented.

Keywords. Mott transition - Organic conductors - Vanadium oxide - Bad metals - Dynamical Mean-Field Theory - Liquid-gas transition.

To appear in: Proceedings of the Vth International Conference on Crystalline Organic Metals, Superconductors and Magnets (ISCOM 2003) to be published in Journal de Physique IV (EDP Sciences).

1. MATERIALS ON THE VERGE OF THE MOTT TRANSITION

The Mott phenomenon - that interactions between electrons can be responsible for the insulating character of a material - plays a key role in the physics of strongly correlated electron materials. Outstanding examples  are transition-metal oxides (e.g superconducting cuprates), fullerene compounds, as well as organic conductors. A limited number of these materials are poised right on the verge of this electronic instability. This is the case, for example, of V2O3, NiS2-xSex and of quasi two-dimensional organic conductors of the $`\kappa `$-BEDT family. These materials are particularly interesting for the fundamental investigation of the Mott transition, since they offer the possibility of going from one phase to the other by varying some external parameter (e.g chemical composition,temperature, pressure,…). Varying external pressure is definitely a tool of choice since it allows to sweep continuously from the insulating phase to the metallic phase (and back). The phase diagrams of (V1-x Crx)2O3 and of $`\kappa `$-(BEDT-TTF)2Cu\[N(CN)2\]Cl under pressure are displayed in Fig. 1.

There is a great similarity between the high-temperature part of the phase diagrams of these materials, despite very different energy scales. At low-pressure they are paramagnetic Mott insulators, which are turned into metals as pressure is increased. Above a critical temperature $`T_c`$ (of order $`450`$K for the oxide compound and $`40`$K for the organic one), this corresponds to a smooth crossover. In contrast, for $`T<T_c`$ a first-order transition is observed, with a discontinuity of all physical observables (e.g resistivity). The first order transition line ends in a second order critical endpoint at $`(T_c,P_c)`$. We observe that in both cases, the critical temperature is a very small fraction of the bare electronic energy scales (for V2O3 the half-bandwidth is of order $`0.51`$ eV, while it is of order $`2000`$ K for the organics).

There are also some common features between the low-temperature part of the phase diagram of these compounds, such as the fact that the paramagnetic Mott insulator orders into an antiferromagnet as temperature is lowered. However, there are also striking differences: the metallic phase has a superconducting instability for the organics, while this is not the case for V2O3. Also, the magnetic transition is only superficially similar : in the case of V2O3, it is widely believed to be accompanied (or even triggered) by orbital ordering (in contrast to NiS2-xSex), and as a result the transition is first-order. In general, there is a higher degree of universality associated with the vicinity of the Mott critical endpoint than in the low-temperature region, in which long-range order takes place in a material- specific manner.

Mott localization into a paramagnetic insulator implies a high spin entropy, which must therefore be quenched in some way as temperature is lowered. An obvious possibility is magnetic ordering, as in these two materials. In fact, a Mott transition between a paramagnetic Mott insulator and a metallic phase is only observed in those compounds where magnetism is sufficiently frustrated so that the transition is not preempted by magnetic ordering. This is indeed the case in both compounds discussed here: V2O3 has competing ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic exchange constants, while the two-dimensional layers in the organics have a triangular structure. Another possibility is that the entropy is quenched through a Peierls instability (dimerization), in which case the Mott insulator can remain paramagnetic (this is the case, for example, of VO2). Whether it is possible to stabilize a paramagnetic Mott insulator down to $`T=0`$ without breaking spin or translational symmetries is a fascinating problem, both theoretically and from the materials point of view (for a recent review on resonating valence bond phases in frustrated quantum magnets, see e.g ). As discussed by Kanoda at this conference, the compound $`\kappa `$-(BEDT-TTF)2Cu2(CN)3 may offer a realization of such a spin-liquid state (presumably through a combination of strong frustration and strong charge fluctuations ), but this behaviour is certainly more the exception than the rule.

2. DYNAMICAL MEAN-FIELD THEORY AND TWO KEY ENERGY SCALES

Over the last decade, a detailed theory of the strongly correlated metallic state, and of the Mott transition itself has emerged, based on the dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT). We refer to  for a review and an extensive list of original references. Some key features of this theory are the following :

* In the metallic state, Fermi-liquid theory applies below a low energy scale $`\epsilon _F^{}`$, which can be interpreted as the coherence-scale for quasiparticles. This low-energy coherence scale is given by $`\epsilon _F^{}ZD`$ (with $`D`$ the half-bandwith, also equal to the Fermi energy of the non-interacting system at half-filling) where $`Z`$ is the quasiparticle weight. In the strongly correlated metal close to the transition, $`Z1`$, so that $`\epsilon _F^{}`$ is strongly reduced as compared to the bare Fermi energy.
* In addition to low-energy quasiparticles (carrying a fraction $`Z`$ of the spectral weight), the one-particle spectrum of the strongly correlated metal contains high-energy excitations carrying a spectral weight $`1Z`$. These are associated to the atomic-like transitions corresponding to the addition or removal of one electron on an atomic site, which broaden into Hubbard bands in the solid. As a result, the $`𝐤`$-integrated spectral function $`A(\omega )=_𝐤A(𝐤,\omega )`$ (density of states d.o.s) of the strongly correlated metal is predicted  to display a three-peak structure, made of a quasiparticle band close to the Fermi energy surrounded by lower and upper Hubbard bands (Fig. 3). The quasiparticle part of the d.o.s has a reduced width of order $`ZD\epsilon _F^{}`$. The lower and upper Hubbard bands are separated by an energy scale $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$.
* At strong enough coupling (see below), the paramagnetic solution of the DMFT equations is a Mott insulator, with a gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in the one-particle spectrum. This phase is characterized by unscreened local moments, associated with a Curie law for the local susceptibility $`_q\chi _q1/T`$, and an extensive entropy (note however that the uniform susceptiblity $`\chi _{q=0}`$ is finite, of order $`1/JU/D^2`$). As temperature is lowered, these local moments order into an antiferromagnetic phase . The Néel temperature is however strongly dependent on frustration  (e.g on the ratio $`t^{}/t`$ between the next nearest-neighbour and nearest-neighbour hoppings) and can be made vanishingly small for fully frustrated models.

Within DMFT, a separation of energy scales holds close to the Mott transition. The mean-field solution corresponding to the paramagnetic metal at $`T=0`$ disappears at a critical coupling $`U_{c2}`$. At this point, the quasiparticle weight vanishes ($`Z1U/U_{c2}`$) as in Brinkman-Rice theory. On the other hand, a mean-field insulating solution is found for $`U>U_{c1}`$, with the Mott gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ opening up at this critical coupling (Mott-Hubbard transition). As a result, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is a finite energy scale for $`U=U_{c2}`$ and the quasiparticle peak in the d.o.s is well separated from the Hubbard bands in the strongly correlated metal.

These two critical couplings extend at finite temperature into two spinodal lines $`U_{c1}(T)`$ and $`U_{c2}(T)`$, which delimit a region of the $`(U/D,T/D)`$ parameter space in which two mean-field solutions (insulating and metallic) are found (Fig. 2). Hence, within DMFT, a first-order Mott transition occurs at finite temperature even in a purely electronic model. The corresponding critical temperature $`T_c^{el}`$ is of order $`T_c^{el}\mathrm{\Delta }E/\mathrm{\Delta }S`$, with $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }S\mathrm{ln}(2S+1)`$ the energy and entropy differences between the metal and the insulator. Because the energy difference is small ($`\mathrm{\Delta }E(U_{c2}U_{c1})^2/D`$), the critical temperature is much lower than $`D`$ and $`U_c`$ (by almost two orders of magnitude).

The existence of well- formed (lower) Hubbard bands in correlated metals was established experimentally more than ten years ago in the pioneering work  of Fujimori and coworkers on the photoemission spectra of $`d^1`$ transition metal oxides. A clear demonstration of the narrow quasiparticle peak in $`A(\omega )`$ predicted by DMFT close to the transition came only recently however (see  for the metallic phase of V2O3 and  for NiS2-xSex). In the case of V2O3, this was made possible by the use of high-energy photons in photoemission spectroscopy, allowing to overcome the surface sensitivity of this technique. This also proved essential in resolving a long-standing controversy on the spectroscopy of Ca1-xSrxVO3 .

The quasiparticle peak in the d.o.s is characterized by an extreme sensitivity to changes of temperature (inset of Fig. 3). Its height is strongly reduced as $`T`$ is increased, and the peak disappears altogether as $`T`$ reaches $`\epsilon _F^{}`$, leaving a pseudogap at the Fermi energy. Indeed, above $`\epsilon _F^{}`$, long-lived coherent quasiparticles no longer exist. The corresponding spectral weight is redistributed over a very large range of energies, of order $`U`$. These spectral weight transfers and redistributions are a distinctive feature of strongly correlated systems, and have been observed e.g in the optical conductivity of both metallic V2O3  and the organics . This is reminiscent of Kondo systems , and indeed DMFT establishes a formal and physical connection  between a metal close to the Mott transition and the Kondo problem. The local moment present at short time-scales is screened through a self-consistent Kondo process involving the low-energy part of the (single- component) electronic fluid itself.

3. TRANSPORT REGIMES AND CROSSOVERS

The disappearance of coherent quasiparticles, and associated spectral changes, results in three distinct transport regimes  for a correlated metal close to the Mott transition, within DMFT (Figs. 2 and 3):

* In the Fermi-liquid regime $`T\epsilon _F^{}`$, the resistivity obeys a $`T^2`$ law with an enhanced prefactor: $`\rho =\rho _M(T/\epsilon _F^{})^2`$. In this expression, $`\rho _M`$ is the Mott-Ioffe-Regel resistivity $`\rho _Mha/e^2`$ corresponding to a mean-free path of the order of a single lattice spacing in a Drude picture.
* For $`T\epsilon _F^{}`$, an “incoherent” (or “bad”) metal regime is entered. The quasiparticle lifetime shortens dramatically, and the quasiparticle peak is strongly suppressed (but still present). In this regime, the resistivity is metallic-like (i.e increases with $`T`$) but reaches values considerably larger than the Mott “limit” $`\rho _M`$. A Drude description is no longer applicable in this regime.
* Finally, for $`\epsilon _F^{}T\mathrm{\Delta }`$, quasiparticles are gone altogether and the d.o.s displays a pseudogap associated with the scale $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and filled with thermal excitations. This yields a semi-conducting regime of transport, with the resistivity decreasing upon heating. Hence, the temperature dependence of the resistivity displays a maximum (Fig. 3). This maximum is observed experimentally in both Cr-doped V2O3 and the organics.

Within DMFT, the conductivity can be simply obtained from a calculation of the one-particle self-energy since vertex corrections are absent. However, a precise determination of both the real and imaginary part of the real-frequency self-energy is required. This is a challenge for most “impurity solvers”. In practice, early calculations used the iterated perturbation theory (IPT) approximation. The results displayed in Fig. 3 have been obtained with this technique, and the overall shape of the resistivity curves are qualitatively reasonable. However, the IPT approximation does a poor job on the quasiparticle lifetime in the low-temperature regime. Indeed, we expect on general grounds that, close to the transition, $`D\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ becomes a scaling function  of $`\omega /\epsilon _F^{}`$ and $`T/\epsilon _F^{}`$, so that for $`T\epsilon _F^{}`$ it behaves as: $`\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega =0)D(T/\epsilon _F^{})^2T^2/(Z^2D)`$ which leads to an enhancement of the $`T^2`$ coefficient of the resistivity by $`1/Z^2`$ as mentioned above. The IPT approximation does not capture this enhancement and yields the incorrect result $`\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{IPT}(\omega =0)U^2T^2/D^3`$. For this reason, we have recently used  the numerical renormalization group (NRG) method in order to perform accurate transport calculations within DMFT. This method is very appropriate in this context, since it is highly accurate at low energies and yields real-frequency data. A comparison of the IPT and NRG results for both the resistivity and lifetime is displayed in Fig. 4. The very different curvatures in the low-T regime in fact affects the whole T-dependence of the resistivity. In particular, the resistivity maximum occurs at a temperature much lower than predicted by the IPT approximation. We found this to be important when comparing these calculations to transport data on organics. Both these compounds and Cr-doped V2O3 display the various crossovers described above.

4. CRITICAL BEHAVIOUR: A LIQUID-GAS TRANSITION

Progress has been made recently in identifying the critical behaviour at the Mott critical endpoint, both from a theoretical and experimental standpoint.

It has been pointed early on by Castellani et al. (see also ) that an analogy exists with the liquid-gas transition in a classical fluid. Qualitatively, one can focus on the density of double occupancies (or holes) in each phase: the insulating phase then corresponds to a low-density “gas”, while the metallic phase corresponds to a high-density “liquid”. Recently, this analogy has been given firm theoretical foundations within the framework of a Landau theory  derived from DMFT by Kotliar and coworkers. In this framework, a scalar order parameter $`\varphi `$ is associated with the low-energy electronic degrees of freedom which build up the quasiparticle resonance in the strongly correlated metallic phase close to the transition. This order parameter couples to the singular part of the double occupancy (hence providing a connection to the qualitative picture above), as well as to other observables such as the Drude weight or the dc-conductivity. Because of the scalar nature of the order parameter, the transition falls in the Ising universality class. In Table 1, the correspondence between the Ising model quantities, and the physical observables of the liquid-gas transition and of the Mott metal-insulator transition is summarized.

Table 1: Corresponding quantities in the liquid-gas description of the Mott critical endpoint. The associated Landau free-energy density reads $`r\varphi ^2+u\varphi ^4h\varphi `$ (a possible $`\varphi ^3`$ can be eliminated by an appropriate change of variables and a shift of $`\varphi `$).

| Hubbard model | Mott MIT | Liquid-gas | Ising model |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| $`DD_c`$ | $`pp_c`$ | $`pp_c`$ | Field $`h`$ |
|  |  |  | (w/ some admixture of $`r`$) |
|  |  |  | Distance to |
| $`TT_c`$ | $`TT_c`$ | $`TT_c`$ | critical point $`r`$ |
|  |  |  | (w/ some admixture of $`h`$) |
| Low-$`\omega `$ | Low-$`\omega `$ | $`v_gv_L`$ | Order parameter |
| spectral weight | spectral weight |  | (scalar field $`\varphi `$) |

In Fig. 5, the dc-conductivity obtained from DMFT in the half-filled Hubbard model (using IPT) is plotted as a function of the half-bandwith $`D`$, for several different temperatures. The curves qualitatively resemble those of the Ising model order parameter as a function of magnetic field (in fact, $`DD_c`$ is a linear combination of the field $`h`$ and of the mass term $`r`$ in the Ising model field theory). Close to the critical point, scaling implies that the whole data set can be mapped onto a universal form of the equation of state: $`\varphi =h^{1/\delta }f_\pm \left(h/|r|^{\gamma \delta /(\delta 1)}\right)`$. In this expression, $`\gamma `$ and $`\delta `$ are critical exponents associated with the order parameter and susceptibility, respectively: $`\varphi h^{1/\delta }`$ at $`T=T_c`$ and $`\chi =d\varphi /dh|TT_c|^\gamma `$. $`f_\pm `$ are universal scaling functions associated with $`T>T_c`$ (resp. $`T<T_c`$). A quantitative study of the critical behaviour of the double occupancy within DMFT was made in Ref. , with the expected mean-field values of the exponents $`\gamma =1,\delta =3`$.

Precise experimental studies of the critical behaviour at the Mott critical endpoint have been performed very recently, using a variable pressure technique, for Cr-doped V2O3  and also for the $`\kappa `$-BEDT organic compounds . In the case of V2O3, a full scaling onto the universal equation of state of the liquid-gas transition could be obtained .

5. COUPLING TO THE LATTICE, HOT SPOTS AND MORE…

To conclude, we would like to emphasize some open issues and topics of current interest in connection with the Mott transition and its theoretical description reviewed here.

Lattice degrees of freedom do play a role at the Mott transition in real materials, e.g the lattice spacing changes discontinuously through the first-order transition line in (V1-x Crx)2O3. In the metallic phase, the d-electrons participate in the cohesion of the solid, hence leading to a smaller lattice spacing than in the insulating phase. Both the electronic degrees of freedom and the ionic positions must be retained in order to describe these effects. In Ref.  (see also , such a model was treated in the simplest approximation where all phonon excitations are neglected. The free energy then reads: $`F=K(vv_0)^2/2+F_{el}\left[D(v)\right]`$. In this expression, $`v`$ is the unit-cell volume, $`K`$ is an elastic constant and the electronic part of the free-energy $`F_{el}`$ depends on $`v`$ through the volume-dependence of the bandwith. In such a model, the critical endpoint is reached when the electronic response function $`\chi =^2F_{el}/D^2`$ is large enough (but not infinite), and hence the critical temperature $`T_c`$ of the compressible model is larger than $`T_c^{el}`$ (at which $`\chi `$ diverges in the Hubbard model). The compressibility $`\kappa =\left(v^2F/v^2\right)^1`$ diverges at $`T_c`$. This implies an anomalous lowering of the sound-velocity at the transition, an effect that has been experimentally observed in the $`\kappa `$-BEDT compounds recently .

We emphasize that, within DMFT, a purely electronic model can display a first-order Mott transition and a finite-T critical endpoint (associated with a diverging $`\chi `$), provided that magnetism is frustrated enough so that ordering does not preempt the transition. Whether this also holds for the finite-dimensional Hubbard model beyond DMFT is to a large extent an open question (see  for indications supporting this conclusion in the 2D case).

There are also important open questions associated with the role of spatial correlations (inadequately treated by DMFT) in our theoretical understanding of the Mott transition. In the regime where the quasiparticle coherence scale $`\epsilon _F^{}`$ is small as compared to the (effective strength of the) superexchange $`J`$, the DMFT picture is certainly deeply modified. A possibility is that near the transition, the Fermi surface divides into “cold” and “hot” regions associated with longer and shorter quasiparticle lifetimes, respectively (as recently found in a cluster DMFT study, see also T.Giamarchi et al. in these proceedings). Finally, the role of long-wavelength collective modes (in both the charge and spin sectors), and their feedback on quasiparticle properties is also a key issue which requires to go beyond the DMFT framework.

Acknowledgements

We are most grateful to the experimental group at Orsay (D. Jerome, P. Limelette, C. Pasquier, P. Wzietek) as well as to P. Batail, P. Metcalf, C. Meziere and J.M. Honig, for a wonderful collaboration. We also thank J.Allen, S.R. Hassan, M. Imada, G. Kotliar, H.R. Krishnamurthy, and M. Rozenberg for numerous discussions.


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# Largest Lyapunov exponent of long-range XY systems

## 1 Introduction

The largest Lyapunov exponent (LLE) measures the sensitivity to initial conditions in dynamical systems. More precisely, it gives the asymptotic rate of exponential growth of most vectors in tangent space. Thus, the determination of the LLE, either numerical or analytical, requires the knowledge of the long-time behavior of a system of linear differential equations with time-dependent coefficients.

From a numerical point of view, there are standard and simple algorithms for computing the LLE that perform satisfactorily, even for large systems . To the best of our knowledge, the first attempt to evaluate analytically the LLE of many-body systems with smooth Hamiltonians was made by Pettini and collaborators, less than ten years ago . This “geometric” approach begins by postulating a mean-field approximation in tangent space. Then, the few resulting equations are handled with the techniques of stochastic differential equations (cumulant expansion ) which, eventually, lead to an analytical estimate of the LLE. Despite the success of the geometric method in reproducing the LLE of some many-particle systems, it must be stressed that, from a theoretical point of view, this method is unsatisfactory: it presents drawbacks such as ad-hoc approximations, ill-defined ingredients, and free parameters (see the discussion in Ref. ). However, it is possible to construct a first-principles theory following the steps of Pettini et al., but avoiding the defects of the geometric method. The idea is simple: do not invoke a mean-field approximation at the start, just apply the cumulant expansion to the full $`N`$-particle problem. This recipe was partially executed by Barnett et al.  and then complemented by the present authors . The result is a theory where all the ingredients are well defined, there are no free parameters, and approximations are controllable. Even if several of these approximations are really crude, it was shown  that the theory is still capable of quantitative predictions.

Reference  contains the application of the “stochastic approach” to the disordered regimes of the infinite-range $`XY`$ Hamiltonian (HMF) . This model consists of a $`d`$-dimensional lattice of classical spins rotating in parallel planes, and with a pairwise interaction that depends on the relative orientation of spins but not on the distance between them. In Ref.  the HMF was generalized by making the interaction depend on the distance $`r`$ according to the power law $`r^\alpha `$, thus obtaining the family $`\alpha XY`$ (the case $`\alpha =0`$ recovers the HMF, $`\alpha /d\mathrm{}`$ corresponds to first neighbors interactions). The purpose of this paper is to estimate analytically the LLE of the disordered regimes of the $`\alpha XY`$ family, using the stochastic approach . The restriction to these regimes is not an intrinsic limitation of the theory but obeys to the general technical difficulty of determining two-time correlation functions. In the disordered regimes of the $`\alpha XY`$ models the relevant correlation functions are approximately Gaussian.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. For reasons of self-containedness, we begin by presenting a very short review of the theory in Sect. 2. The systems to be studied (the $`\alpha XY`$ Hamiltonians) are introduced in Sect. 3, where we also work out the predictions of the theory for these particular systems. Section 4 contains the critical comparison of theoretical results with numerical simulations. We close in Sect. 5 with a summary and some remarks.

## 2 A short review of the theory

We consider Hamiltonians of the type

$$=\frac{1}{2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_i^2+𝒱(q_1,\mathrm{},q_N),$$
(1)
where $`q_i`$ and $`p_i`$ are conjugate coordinates, and the interaction potential $`𝒱`$ is assumed to be small. This is the case of the disordered phases of the $`\alpha XY`$ models where the interaction energy is very small as compared to the kinetic energy. Let us denote phase space points by $`x`$ and tangent vectors by $`\xi `$. Differentiating the Hamilton equations, one obtains the evolution equations for tangent vectors:

$$\dot{\xi }=𝐀(t)\xi .$$
(2)
For a Hamiltonian of the special form (1), the operator $`𝐀`$ has the simple structure

$$𝐀(t)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& \mathrm{𝟏}\\ 𝐕(t)& 0\end{array}\right).$$
(3)
Here $`𝐕`$ is the Hessian matrix of the potential $`𝒱`$, namely $`V_{ij}=^2𝒱/q_iq_j.`$ Once initial conditions $`x_0`$ and $`\xi _0`$ have been specified, the LLE $`\lambda `$ can be found by calculating the limit

$$\lambda =\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{2t}\mathrm{ln}|\xi (t;x_0,\xi _0)|^2.$$
(4)
We assume that for any initial condition $`x_0`$ in phase space, the trajectory $`x(t;x_0)`$ is ergodic on its energy shell. This implies that $`\lambda `$ depends only on energy and other system parameters, but not on $`x_0`$, which can then be chosen randomly according to the microcanonical distribution. There will also be no dependence on initial tangent vectors, because if $`\xi _0`$ is also chosen randomly, it will have a non-zero component along the most expanding direction. Moreover, assuming weak intermittency, one can write

$$\lambda \underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{2t}\mathrm{ln}|\xi (t;x_0,\xi _0)|^2,$$
(5)
brackets meaning microcanonical averages over $`x_0`$. This is our first approximation, to be discussed in Sect. 5.

By letting $`x_0`$ be a random variable, $`𝐕(t;x_0)`$ becomes a stochastic process, and Eq. (2) can be treated as a stochastic differential equation. However, as we are interested in the square of the norm of $`\xi `$, we focus, not on Eq. (2) itself, but in the related equation for the evolution of the “density matrix” $`\xi \xi ^T`$:

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t}(\xi \xi ^T)=𝐀\xi \xi ^T+\xi \xi ^T𝐀^T\widehat{𝐀}\xi \xi ^T,$$
(6)
the rightmost identity defining the linear superoperator $`\widehat{𝐀}`$. For the purpose of the perturbative approximations to be done, the operator $`\widehat{𝐀}`$ is split into two parts $`\widehat{𝐀}=\widehat{𝐀}_0+\widehat{𝐀}_1(t)`$, where $`\widehat{𝐀}_0`$ corresponds to the evolution in the absence of interactions, and $`\widehat{𝐀}_1`$ depends on the Hessian of the interaction. Assuming that the fluctuations of $`𝐀_1(t)`$ are small and/or rapid enough, it is possible to manipulate Eq. (6) to derive an explicit expression for the evolution of the average of $`\xi \xi ^T`$:

$$\xi \xi ^T(t)=\mathrm{exp}\left(t\widehat{𝚲}\right)\xi _0\xi _0^T,$$
(7)
where $`\widehat{𝚲}`$ is a time-independent superoperator given by a cumulant expansion, which we truncate at the second order (the lowest non-trivial order). We refer the reader to  for explicit expressions. The truncation of the cumulant expansion is our second approximation. The perturbative parameter controlling the quality of the truncation is the product of two quantities, the “Kubo number” $`\sigma \tau _c`$. The first factor, $`\sigma `$, characterizes the amplitude of the fluctuations of $`\widehat{𝐀}_1(t)`$. The second, $`\tau _c`$, is the correlation time of $`\widehat{𝐀}_1(t)`$.

Let $`L_{\mathrm{max}}`$ be the eigenvalue of $`\widehat{𝚲}`$ which has the largest real part. Taking the trace of Eq. (7), one sees that the LLE $`\lambda `$ is related to the real part of $`L_{\mathrm{max}}`$ by

$$\lambda =\frac{1}{2}\text{Re}\left(L_{\mathrm{max}}\right).$$
(8)
To proceed further one needs the matrix of $`\widehat{𝚲}`$ in some basis. The crudest approximation consists in restricting $`\widehat{𝚲}`$ to a particular three-dimensional subspace, a choice that is equivalent to a mean-field approximation in tangent space . The corresponding 3$`\times `$3 matrix for $`\widehat{𝚲}`$ is:

$$𝚲=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 2\\ 2\sigma ^2\tau _c^{(1)}& 2\sigma ^2\tau _c^{(3)}& 2\mu \\ \mu +2\sigma ^2\tau _c^{(2)}& 1& 2\sigma ^2\tau _c^{(3)}\end{array}\right),$$
(9)
with the definitions

$`\mu `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}\mathrm{Tr}𝐕,\sigma ^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}\mathrm{Tr}\left(\delta 𝐕\right)^2,`$ (10)
$`\tau _c^{(k+1)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\tau \tau ^kf(\tau ),f(\tau )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N\sigma ^2}}\mathrm{Tr}\delta 𝐕(0)\delta 𝐕(\tau )`$ (11)
(see  for details). In the mean-field approximation the LLE is expressed in terms of the set of four parameters $`\mu `$ and $`\sigma ^2\tau _c^{(k+1)}`$, $`k=0,1,2`$. The parameters $`\mu `$ and $`\sigma `$ are, respectively, the mean and variance of the stochastic process $`𝐕(t)`$. The characteristic time $`\tau _c^{(1)}\tau _c`$ is naturally interpreted as the correlation time of the process $`𝐕(t)`$, $`f(\tau )`$ being the relevant correlation function.

## 3 The $`\alpha XY`$ Hamiltonians

In this section we apply the perturbative/mean-field theory of Sect. 2 to the $`\alpha XY`$ Hamiltonians

$$H=\frac{1}{2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_i^2+\frac{J}{2\stackrel{~}{N}}\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{1\mathrm{cos}(\theta _i\theta _j)}{r_{ij}^\alpha }𝒦+𝒱,$$
(12)
where $`\stackrel{~}{N}=\stackrel{~}{N}(\alpha ,d)=_{ij}r_{ij}^\alpha /N`$, and $`r_{ij}`$ is the distance on the periodic lattice . This model represents a lattice of classical spins with the interaction range controlled by the parameter $`\alpha `$. Each spin rotates in a plane and is therefore described by an angle $`0\theta _i<2\pi `$, and its conjugate angular momentum $`p_i`$, with $`i=1,\mathrm{},N`$. The constant $`J>0`$ is the interaction strength. The $`\alpha XY`$ Hamiltonian has been extensively studied in the last few years. It has been shown that the long-range cases ($`\alpha <d`$) have the same thermodynamic properties as the $`\alpha =0`$ case (HMF), in all the energy range . If one looks only at the high energy regimes, then for all $`\alpha `$ the equilibrium properties are those of a gas of almost free rotators. However, time scales do depend on $`\alpha `$. This is the case of LLEs, which have been studied in detail, both numerically  and analytically. Scaling laws for high energies were obtained by Firpo and Ruffo , using the geometric method  and also by the present authors, using a random-matrix approach .

In order to apply the stochastic approach, in its mean-field second-order-perturbative version, one has to calculate the average, variance, and correlation function of the Hessian $`𝐕(t)`$, i.e., Eqs. (10) and (11). For high energies these ingredients can be easily estimated, using simple approximations. Anyway, we will verify that the theoretical estimates, coarse as they are, coincide with the exact time averages calculated numerically.

The elements of the matrix $`𝐕`$ can be readily obtained:

$$V_{ij}=\frac{J}{\stackrel{~}{N}}\frac{\mathrm{cos}(\theta _i\theta _j)}{r_{ij}^\alpha }(ij);V_{ii}=\underset{ji}{}V_{ij}.$$
(13)
Then, inserting this result in the definition (10) of $`\mu `$ we arrive at $`\mu /J=12𝒱/(NJ)`$. The average potential energy $`𝒱`$ can be calculated as a canonical average following the (now standard) saddle-point calculations of Refs. . Skipping the details, one arrives at

$$\mu /J\frac{\beta J}{2}\frac{\stackrel{~}{N}(2\alpha ,d)}{\stackrel{~}{N}^2(\alpha ,d)}\frac{\beta J}{2}\frac{1}{𝒩(\alpha ,d)},$$
(14)
where $`\beta `$, the inverse of the temperature, is related to the energy per particle $`\epsilon `$ through $`\beta ^1=2\epsilon J`$, in the disordered regimes. This expression for $`\mu `$ coincides with the result obtained by Firpo and Ruffo , except for a factor of two.

The calculation of $`\sigma ^2`$ proceeds in the same way as in the case $`\alpha =0`$ (see ), but here we make the extreme approximation of free rotators. That is, we assume

$`\mathrm{cos}(\theta _i\theta _j)`$ $``$ $`0,`$
$`\mathrm{cos}^2(\theta _i\theta _j)`$ $``$ $`1/2,`$
$`\mathrm{cos}(\theta _i\theta _j)\mathrm{cos}(\theta _i\theta _k)`$ $``$ $`0,`$ (15)
where it is understood that $`ij`$ and $`jk`$. Then the final approximate expression for $`\sigma ^2`$ is

$$\sigma ^2J^2\frac{1}{𝒩(\alpha ,d)}.$$
(16)
At high temperatures, the relative importance of the interactions decreases with increasing energy and $`N`$, and the dynamics is dominated by the kinetic part of the Hamiltonian. The picture is that of particles rotating almost freely during times which are long as compared to the mean rotation period. For any value of $`\alpha `$ we can assume, as a first approximation, that the values of $`\{\theta _k\}`$ and $`\{p_k\}`$ are independent random variables with uniform and Maxwell distributions, respectively. The decorrelation mechanism is just single-particle phase mixing. Within this approximation the correlation function is Gaussian and the correlation time is of the order of the mean period of rotation, i.e.,

$$\tau _c\sqrt{\frac{\pi \beta }{4}}.$$
(17)
Gathering the results of previous sections, one can construct the $`3\times 3`$ matrix $`𝚲`$, and extract the LLE from the eigenvalue of $`𝚲`$ with the largest real part. However, we have verified that for the cases considered here, the LLE is very well approximated by the asymptotic expression

$$\lambda \left(\frac{\sigma ^2\tau _c}{2}\right)^{1/3},$$
(18)
with $`\sigma ^2`$ and $`\tau _c`$ given by Eqs. (16) and (17). The absence of $`\mu `$ in the leading-order expression for $`\lambda `$ says that in the disordered phases of the $`\alpha XY`$, fluctuations are much larger than the average, i.e. $`\sigma \mu `$, and dominate the tangent dynamics. We conclude this section by noting that Eq. (18) leads to the same scaling laws obtained in Refs. .

## 4 Numerical studies

First of all we verified that the analytical calculations of $`\mu `$, $`\sigma ^2`$, and $`\tau _c`$ agree with the corresponding dynamical averages. This test was perfomed for the case $`d=1`$. In Fig. 1 we show numerical values for $`\mu `$ and $`\sigma ^2`$ for various values of $`\alpha `$. Numerical integration of the equations of motion was performed using a fourth order symplectic algorithm , with equilibrium initial conditions, i.e., angles uniformly distributed in $`[0,2\pi )`$ and Gaussian distribution of momenta. Forces were calculated using a Fast Fourier Transform algorithm. One sees that the numerical data can be well described by the approximate expressions (14) and (16).

In order to discuss the correlation times, let us now look at the correlation functions of Fig. 2. Theory and simulations agree almost perfectly in the central part of the distributions. However, there are long tails that grow with increasing $`\alpha `$. We recall that the quantities $`\tau ^{(k)}`$ are moments of the correlation function $`f(\tau )`$, and as such, very sensitive to the precise shape of the tails. So, as $`\alpha `$ grows, we lose confidence on the Gaussian estimates for $`\tau ^{(k)}`$.

For comparing the theory with simulations, we will use LLE data existing in the literature . Figure 3 shows LLEs for different values of $`\alpha `$ as a function of the system size and $`\epsilon =5.0`$. We have considered large particle numbers $`(N50)`$ and an energy well above the transition to ensure (i) the validity of the approximations invoked in calculating the averages of Sect. 3, and also (ii) to guarantee that we are in a disordered, quasi-ballistic regime. Full lines correspond to the theoretical LLEs obtained by using the asymptotic expression of Eq. (18). Figure 3 shows a satisfactory agreement between theory and simulations. Differences in the definition of $`\stackrel{~}{N}`$ were absorbed in $`J`$, otherwise set equal to one.

## 5 Summary and concluding remarks

In a previous paper we had seen that the stochastic recipe works satisfactorily in the quasi-ballistic regimes of the HMF ($`\alpha =0`$). Now we have verified that the theory still works well when the interaction range is not infinite. Even for short-range interactions we have found a good agreement between theory and simulations. This suggests that the crude approximations that allowed us to estimate the LLE may be reasonable in these cases. Let us summarize the approximations we used.

First of all we invoked a weak intermittency approximation to exchange logarithm and average. We tested this approximation in the $`\alpha =0`$ case  and verified that it does not introduce an important error (about or less than 10%, for the cases considered). Even though we have not made numerical tests for $`\alpha >0`$, we suspect that intermittency does not increase with $`\alpha `$, one reason being that the system becomes more chaotic with increasing $`\alpha `$ (the LLE grows with $`\alpha `$).

The second approximation, and most important one, is the truncation of the cumulant expansion at the second order. By doing so, one introduces a relative error of the order of the Kubo number $`\sigma \tau _c`$. This perturbative parameter grows with $`\alpha /d`$ but saturates at a finite value as $`\alpha \mathrm{}`$ (as illustrated in Fig. 1 for $`d=1`$), so there are no indications that the cumulant expansion may fail for short-range.

The “mean-field” diagonalization is exact in the infinite-range case  and was expected to be a good approximation for long-range interactions ($`\alpha <d`$). For short-range forces, this approximation represents a crude truncation of the basis for diagonalizing $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$. Note however that we are dealing with a Hermitian problem, i.e., finding the largest eigenvalue of $`\xi \xi ^T(t)`$ \[Eq. (7)\], then, if $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$ is calculated accurately, truncation of the basis may still produce a good lower bound to the LLE. This could be the explanation for the agreement between theory and simulations also for $`\alpha >d`$ (see Fig. 3). However, this accord should be further explored and tested for values of $`\alpha `$ larger than those here considered.

We have limited our presentation to equilibrium situations. If the system does not explore the full phase space, as is the case of the quasi-stationary regimes of the $`\alpha XY`$ , the stochastic method may still be applied, but then one has to replace microcanonical averages by averages over the (a priori unknown) regions of phase space that are effectively visited by the system.

We are grateful to A. Campa, A. Giansanti, D. Moroni and C. Tsallis for communicating their numerical data. We acknowledge Brazilian Agencies CNPq, FAPERJ and PRONEX for financial support.


text:
# References

BRX TH-529

“String Theory:

a theory in search of an experiment”

Howard J. Schnitzer111email: schnitzr@brandeis.edu. Supported in part by the DOE under grant DR-FG02-92ER40706.

Martin A. Fisher School of Physics

Brandeis University

Waltham, MA 02454

This essay was presented at a celebration for

Professor S.S. Schweber on October 8, 2003

at the Dibner Institute, MIT

## Abstract

It is argued that string theory may pose new conceptual issues for the history and philosophy of science.

I’ve been in particle physics since 1954, so I’ve had the good fortune to witness the emergence of that subject from nuclear physics, and have participated in its development, right through its present incarnation. I came to Brandeis University in 1961, so that for almost my entire career in particle theory, I’ve had the privilege to discuss and debate a wide variety of issues relating to the development of particle physics, and their interpretation in a historical context with Sam. In that spirit, I offer this discussion of string theory to the celebration of Sam’s accomplishments.

I have been a practicing string theorist since the mid 1980’s, so my perspective is as one immersed in the subject. In my opinion string theory raises new issues for the history of physics which need be considered and clarified. Others are more competent than I am to comment on deeper historical and philosophical implications relevant to the subject, so I leave interpretations to them. My role will be to point out issues that I believe need further analysis. As yet, string theory’s place in the history of physics is uncertain; at best it is history in the making. If it succeeds in providing a description of nature it will be one more example of a “top down” theory, i.e., one which is driven by theoretical issues, and not by experiment, at least not in its formative stages. That is, it draws the attention of workers to the field because of the elegance and consistency of its formulation and not as a response to experiments which call out for explanation . There are well recognized “top-down” theories in our subject; 1) general relativity; 2) the Dirac theory of the electron; and 3) the non-abelian gauge theories, (i.e., Yang-Mills theory) are prime examples. Each of these were also theories in search of experiments, and they are with us today because eventual confirming experimental results became available.

In each of these three examples, crucial experiments followed within a reasonable period of time after the presentation of the theory. General relativity was formulated by Einstein so as to respect general covariance and the equivalence principle as underlying features. The residual precesion of the perihelion of Mercury and the deflection of light of stars seen during solar eclipses convinced many soon after that general relativity had something to say about nature. Applications to cosmology and astrophysics are now standard.

The theory of the electron was formulated by Dirac in order to combine special relativity with quantum mechanics. The discovery of the positron, and an understanding of the magnetic moment of the electron provided confirmation of the Dirac equation, and made it a recognized tool of the theorist. The program of string theory to make general relativity compatible with quantum field theory, is in some sense a logical descendant of the Einstein and Dirac theories. By contrast, string theory is still in the process of development, without as yet any experimental confirmation of the underlying ideas, let alone detailed experimental predictions. Nevertheless, the issues addressed by string theory are very compelling, given the antecedents of Einstein and Dirac.

Of course there have been a large number of “bottom-up” theories in particle physics as well. These developed from an experiment or series of experimental results which require explanation. A prime example in particle physics is provided by the proliferation of “elementary” particles in the 1960’s. This prompted several competing theories of the strong interaction symmetries, with Gell-Mann’s SU(3), i.e., the eight-fold way, being the winner of the competition. The crucial experiment in this program was the discovery of the $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ baryon, which provided convincing evidence for the Gell-Mann scheme. The desire for a more fundamental description of the SU(3) of strong-interactions gave rise to the Gell-Mann/Zweig quark model, which in this context should also be considered a bottom-up theory.

Those of us who are active in string theory hope that it will be one more example of a successful top-down theory, but we are not there yet. We are still hoping for any experiment or a series of experiments to support the underlying ideas of this class of theories. (More about this later.) Why do many of us consider string theory so appealing? The short answer is that it is the only known consistent theory which combines quantum mechanics and gravity. But there is more. Perhaps it will be a theory that subsumes the standard model of particle physics, and leads us to explanation of new phenomena? Hopefully time will tell.

A brief historical perspective about string theory  and major changes of direction motivated by crucial calculations or new theoretical insights may place the discussion in perspective. Order emerged in the study of the strong-interactions with Gell-Mann’s SU(3) organizing hadron multiplets into representations of the symmetry group SU(3). The Gell-Mann-Okubo formula gave a precise prediction for the symmetry breaking patterns, which were indeed observed. Other regularities were also observed. Resonances could be organized into a (Chew-Frautchi) plot of angular momentum vs. (mass)2, i.e., $`J`$ vs. $`m^2`$, for particles and resonances. Remarkably these are a series of parallel straight lines, so-called Regge trajectories. It was observed that scattering of hadrons at high energies could be described in terms of the exchange of Regge trajectories between the colliding particles, equivalent to the exchange of particles of arbitrary high spin and correlated mass between the scatterers. This is a remarkable extension of the Yukawa idea of meson exchange between protons. In fact in a two-body scattering process, schematically written 1+2 $``$ 3+4 (s-channel) there are two other associated processes 1+$`\overline{4}`$ $``$ $`\overline{2}`$+4 (t-channel) and 1+$`\overline{4}`$ $``$ $`\overline{2}`$+3 (u-channel). The observation was that all three processes were related, and the high-energy cross-section for the set of three-processes was given by a single amplitude. That is, the three processes were related by so-called “crossing symmetry”. The empirical result was that this single master amplitude could be described by Regge exchange in just one of the three scattering channels, contrary to what is expected from Feynman diagrams. This feature of high-energy scattering processes was termed “hadron duality”, where the Regge-exchange description of the scattering processes need be considered in only one of s, t, or u channels. Not all three. The first attempt at explanation was provided by an ad hoc formula due to Veneziano . Subsequently Nambu  and Goto independently noted that the results of the Veneziano model and its generalization to multiparticle processes (the dual-resonance model) could be described by a theory of relativistic vibrating strings.

This string theory of strong interactions was soon set aside for a variety of reasons. For example it disagreed with scattering at high energies and large momentum transfers. \[The original motivation for hadron duality involved small momentum transfers.\] The data indicated that these large momentum transfer processes were much harder than the soft cross-sections predicted by the dual resonance models. That is, cross-sections decreased as a power-law in the large momentum transfer, measured at fixed energy, rather than the predicted exponential fall-off. Further, deep-inelastic scattering gave evidence for quarks, which did not fit into the dual resonance model in a natural way.

These results indicated that the dual resonance model, or the equivalent string model, was not a viable theory of the strong interactions. In addition, the dual resonance model predicted the existence of a massless state with spin $`J`$=2, which had no role in the strong interactions. Joel Scherk and John Schwarz  turned this latter difficulty into an advantage, proposing that the massless, spin 2 state was the graviton, and that the Nambu-Goto string theory was in fact a theory of gravitational interactions. The modern theory of strings was launched.

Thus, the Nambu-Goto string theory was reinterpreted as a fundamental string, with the Planck mass replacing the hadron mass-scale of (1Gev). In the new understanding, the slope of Regge trajectories was $`\alpha ^{}`$ = ($`\mathrm{\Delta }J`$=1)/(Planck mass)2, and not ($`\mathrm{\Delta }J`$=1)/(1 Gev)2. So what had begun as a phenomenological theory of hadrons, reemerged as a theory of gravity, coupled to particle states. Various quantum field theories coupled to gravity could be obtained in well-controlled low-energy limits. To restate the situation, what was originally an attempt at a bottom-up theory of hadrons, had a new incarnation as a top- down theory entirely motivated by theoretical concerns. It was not yet clear whether this theory was internally consistent, let alone a description of nature. Various versions of string theory were found, but there were consistency issues. In order to be consistent with Lorentz invariance and unitarity (conservation of probability) bosonic strings (fermions absent) had to be formulated in 26-dimensions, with 22 of these compact if contact with our 4-dimensional world was to be achieved. It is presumed that the compact dimensions are much too small to be observed. \[Planck size.\] However, this theory had an unpleasant feature. It contains a tachyon state, i.e., one with $`m^2<0`$, which ruled it out for serious consideration, except as a possible practice field. In order to have a completely consistent string theory, one had to add in the formulation supersymmetry, a symmetry which exchanges bosons $``$ fermions. Then, in order to have Lorentz invariance, unitarity, and absence of tachyons, one was restricted to D=10, of which 6 of these are extremely small, and compact, if contact with our D=4 world was to be made .

However, other theoretical difficulties remained. A number of string theories exhibited “anomalies”. Anomalies are good symmetries of the classical theory, which are broken by the quantum theory, in a way that rendered the theories inconsistent. In string theory, the difficulties occurred with gravitational anomalies. In the 1984 string revolution Michael Green and John Schwarz  found 3 distinct consistent string theories in D=10, all of which were supersymmetric. \[Subsequently 2 more (heterotic) strings were found by Gross, et al. , to establish the 5 only consistent string theories in 10-D.\] The crucial calculations of Green and Schwarz were so tight in their logic and compelling in their conclusions that they convinced a number of workers (including me) that this theory was extremely deep and possibly had something to do with nature. It was certainly the first and only theory which consistently combined general relativity with quantum field theory. As a bonus, each of the consistent string theories are ultraviolet finite, in that the ultraviolet divergences which infest the usual quantum field theories are absent. No renormalization is needed. In the euphoria of the moment, several workers proclaimed that one was on the road to a theory of everything. This overselling of the beautiful achievement of combining general relativity with quantum theory certainly created antagonism to the program, much of which seems to have dissipated.

An ongoing difficulty with any supersymmetric theory is that supersymmetry is at best a broken symmetry. We have yet to find bose $``$ fermi partners for the known particles. If found, the partners would not have the same masses, as the symmetry will be a broken one, with characteristic mass differences of at least 1 Tev. It turns out that breaking supersymmetry in string theory seems inevitably to lead to a cosmological constant in the gravitation sector. Workers (e.g., T. Banks ) are presently trying to turn this feature into an advantage, given the observed cosmological constant found from analyses of cosmic microwave background radiation. The attempt to correlate the observed cosmological constant with a prediction of the mass-scale characterizing supersymmetry breaking is work in progress.

A deep insight; that of a chain of string dualities was discovered by Chris Hull, Paul Townsend, Edward Witten  and others. This provided a demonstration that the 5 consistent string theories in 10-D were in fact different manifestations of a single theory. These 5 theories are linked by dualities to a 6th theory in 11-D, whose low-energy realization is 11-D supergravity. \[Supergravity was an initial attempt to combine supersymmetry and quantum field theory with gravity, but it was shown early on at Brandeis that it too was nonrenormalizable , with an infinite number of undetermined constants. Supergravity is now considered to be the low-energy limit of string theories.\] A puzzle had been that there were 6 natural supergravity theories in D$``$10 \[5 in 10-D and 1 in 11-D\], but there were only five 10-D string theories. It has been proposed that there is an 11-D master theory, M-theory , which subsumes all 6 incarnations, and which links these 6 by dualities, but M-theory still lacks a complete formulation.

Let me sketch some aspects of the chain of string dualities that links these string theories, to give a flavor of the idea. Consider a particular string theory in 10-D, before any of the dimensions have been compactified to reach D=4. Then let the 10th dimension be compactified on a circle of radius $`R`$. Call this theory IIA. There is another theory compactified on a radius 1/$`R`$. \[I use dimensionless units in units of Planck length.\] Call this theory IIB. It turns out that the IIA theory compactified on radius $`R`$ is identical to IIB theory compactified at radius 1/$`R`$. \[Parenthetically, this leads to a string uncertainty principle. A new conceptual idea. One cannot probe distances shorter than the Planck length in a scattering process, as a duality $`R1/R`$ maps this to a distance scale larger than the Planck length.\] There is another duality, S-duality, which relates one theory with string coupling constant $`g_s`$ to another string theory with coupling constant 1/$`g_s`$. This is the string analogue of the electromagnetic duality of Maxwell’s theory under which $`EB`$ and $`BE`$. This gives a glimpse of the chain of dualities, which links all 5 string theories, as well as the 11-D supergravity. Hence, the idea that there is just one master theory in 11-D, M-theory, which however is still not completely characterized.

Recall that to make any possible contact with the real world, we must compactify 6 of the 10-dimensions, leaving 4-D Minkowski space, in the low-energy limit. There are a large number of ways of carrying out this compactification, each leading to potentially different predictions of 4-dimensional physics. With abuse of language, we call these different compactifications different theories.

A recent deep insight was the principle of holography (’t Hooft; Susskind; Maldacena) . It was proposed, supported by many concrete examples that verified the idea, that a consistent quantum theory of gravity in (D+1) compact bulk dimensions \[string theory is the only known example\] is dual to a quantum field theory without gravity living on the D-dimensional boundary. This duality in detail implies that correlators of the bulk and boundary theories are related. The principle also states that there is at most (one degree of freedom)/Planck area on the boundary. This point of view has led to a description of black-hole thermodynamics in terms of string microstates, for certain well-chosen examples . Thus, string-theory seems to provide the statistical mechanics which underlie black-hole thermodynamics. Optimists hope that further developments in this direction will solve the black hole information paradox. Loosely speaking, throw the encyclopedia into a black-hole, and out comes uncorrelated thermal Hawking radiation. Where has the information gone? But more needs to be done to see if the paradox can be resolved. Holography has also provided many new insights into the strong-interactions of quantum field theories. This too remains an active area of investigation.

All these beautiful developments are dominated by theoretical considerations, but not by choice. What about prospects for a crucial experiment? In the next generation of experiments, which will be carried out at the LHC (CERN) now under construction, there will be dedicated searches for (broken) bose-fermi symmetry, i.e., supersymmetry. If found, this will be good news for string theories, as supersymmetry seems to be a necessary, but not sufficient, ingredient to confirm string theory.

Another issue being actively explored is the possibility that not all of the 6 hidden dimensions are small (i.e., of Planck size). Some might be considerably larger (mm?) . Considerable effort is going into formulating experiments to test for large compact dimensions. \[Extra dimensions is a natural descendent of the top-down model of Kaluza-Klein.\] Their experimental discovery would be sufficient to confirm this essential idea of string theory, without pointing to any specific version of the theory. So, discovery of large extra dimensions is sufficient to support one of the fundamental features of string theory, but is not necessary. It could be that all hidden dimensions are of Planck size.

So supersymmetry and/or large extra dimensions would give support to the general ideas of string theory, but would not provide the crucial experiments in the historical sense. Can we foresee a crucial experiment? Not at the present time. String theorists are presently making excursions into cosmology, so perhaps there will be a distinctive signature in that application of the theory. Perhaps there is a particularly attractive compactification of 10 $``$ 4 dimensions which agrees very well with the standard model, fixing some or all of the free parameters, and makes distinctive predictions for future experiments. But this seems to be a very distant prospect.

There is another unpleasant possibility that is presently being discussed. Suppose that there are a large number of different string theory compactifications (1000 say, to as many as $`10^{100}`$ claimed by Douglas ), which make predictions that closely resemble those of the standard model and its extensions within experimental error. \[It should be emphasized that there are no known examples, since we don’t have a single example of this class!\] Instead, what is studied are the statistics of the number of string theories which make low-energy predictions close to each other. Perhaps these overlapping theories may be distinguished by cosmology. If not we are faced with a deep and disturbing problem. We would have a large number of theories which agree with any conceivable experiment, but lack a crucial experiment to distinguish them. Simplicity does not seem to favor any particular theory of this class, so this is apparently not a decisive criterion. How is one to assess such a class of theories? This is certainly science and not mathematics, since they would correctly predict all possible accessible experiments, all within experimental accuracy. If indeed this is what lies in the future of string theory, in my opinion it opens new issues in the history of physics, ripe for new interpretations.

Perhaps this point of view is too pessimistic, and represents a “pendulum-like” swing away from the early euphoria that claimed that string theory was a theory of everything. The reaction seems to have swung too far in the opposite direction, as not a single concrete example exists to illustrate the concerns of the pessimists. They are certainly considering logical possibilities, but we just don’t know how the story will evolve.

In any case, string theory is still work in progress, with final judgment as to its role in physics still to be decided, and there may be further string revolutions before the ultimate form of the theory takes shape. As I’ve attempted to indicate, this particular “top-down” theory raises a number of problems in the assessment of the status of a theory, and its confirmation by experiment. Hopefully we will see theoretical and conceptual clarification in the future.


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# The high-energy galactic tau neutrino flux and its atmospheric background

## 1 Introduction

The Milky way is one of the nearby astrophysical sources producing high energy neutrinos, besides the familiar earth atmosphere Athar:2003gw . Measurements of galactic neutrino and photon fluxes could provide information about the distribution of matter and cosmic rays in the galaxy. Furthermore, the above flux is also a background for the search of more distant high energy neutrino sources such as the AGNs and the GRBs. In this talk, we shall focus on the flux of $`\nu _\tau `$. It is clear that the observation of astrophysical $`\nu _\tau `$, with a flux comparable to the flux of $`\nu _e`$ and $`\nu _\mu `$, directly confirms the neutrino oscillations. In order to observe galactic $`\nu _\tau `$ flux, it is essential to study the atmospheric background. We shall focus on the energy range $`E_\nu 10^3`$ GeV.

We first discuss the distinction between intrinsic and oscillated neutrino fluxes arising from the Milky way and the earth atmosphere. We then present results for galactic and atmospheric tau neutrino fluxes. Finally we comment on the prospects for observing galactic tau neutrinos.

## 2 Intrinsic and oscillated neutrino fluxes

It is well known that the relative flavor ratio for astrophysical neutrinos at the source is approximately $`\varphi _{\nu _e}^0:\varphi _{\nu _\mu }^0:\varphi _{\nu _\tau }^0=1:2:0`$. The commonly accepted astrophysical processes for producing electron and muon neutrinos are $`(\gamma ,p)+p\pi ^\pm +X`$ where pion further decays into electron and muon neutrinos with the ratio $`\varphi _{\nu _e}^0:\varphi _{\nu _\mu }^0=1:2`$. On the other hand, the production mechanism for the tau neutrino is $`(\gamma ,p)+pD_s+X`$ where $`D_s`$ further decays into tau neutrinos. The production cross section for $`D_s`$ meson is much smaller than that for $`\pi ^\pm `$ for center-of-mass energy $`\sqrt{s}`$ (1-10) GeV. Hence $`\varphi _{\nu _\tau }^0`$ is suppressed compared to $`\varphi _{\nu _e}^0`$ and $`\varphi _{\nu _\mu }^0`$.

Although $`\nu _\tau `$ flux is rather suppressed at the source, it is not negligible at the detector. As neutrinos propagate to the earth, the oscillation effect takes place and the relative neutrino flavor ratio changes as a result. Let us denote the neutrino flux reaching the earth as $`\varphi _{\nu _\alpha }`$. Then Athar:2000yw

$$\varphi _{\nu _\alpha }=\underset{\beta }{}P_{\alpha \beta }\varphi _{\nu _\beta }^0,$$
(1)
where $`P_{\alpha \beta }`$ is a function of neutrino mixing matrix $`U_{\alpha i}`$ which connects the neutrino mass eigenstate to the flavor eigenstate. The $`\alpha ,\beta `$ run over $`e,\mu `$ and $`\tau `$. Assuming a bi-maximal mixing for $`U_{\alpha i}`$, one obtains for vanishing $`\delta `$ and $`\theta _{13}`$ Athar:2000ak

$$P_{\alpha \beta }=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1/2& 1/4& 1/4\\ 1/4& 3/8& 3/8\\ 1/4& 3/8& 3/8\end{array}\right).$$
(2)
Such a probability matrix implies $`\varphi _{\nu _e}:\varphi _{\nu _\mu }:\varphi _{\nu _\tau }=1:1:1`$. This flavor ratio is applicable to galactic neutrinos since these neutrinos propagate through a distance much greater than the neutrino oscillation length. On the other hand, this ratio is not applicable to the atmospheric neutrinos for $`E_\nu 10^3`$ GeV considered here. At this energy, the oscillation length for the atmospheric neutrino is of the order $`10^{10}`$ cm, which is much greater than even the earth diameter. Hence the atmospheric $`\nu _\tau `$ flux for $`E_\nu 10^3`$ GeV must be dominantly an intrinsic one.

## 3 The galactic and atmospheric tau neutrino fluxes

The total galactic tau neutrino flux consists of intrinsic and oscillated components. Both components follow from the collisions of primary cosmic-ray proton with interstellar medium proton. The density of interstellar medium proton is taken to be $`n_p=1\mathrm{cm}^3`$ along the galactic plane, while the primary cosmic ray spectrum, $`\varphi _p(E_p)`$, is taken to be JACEE

$$\varphi _p(E_p)=\{\begin{array}{cc}1.7(E_p/\text{GeV})^{2.7}\hfill & \mathrm{for}E_p<E_0,\hfill \\ 174(E_p/\text{GeV})^3\hfill & \mathrm{for}E_pE_0,\hfill \end{array}$$
(3)
where $`E_0=510^6`$ GeV and $`\varphi _p(E_p)`$ is in units of cm-2 s-1 sr-1 GeV-1. We assume directional isotropy in $`\varphi _p(E_p)`$ for the above energy range. A more recent measurement of cosmic-ray flux spectrum between $`210^5`$ GeV and $`10^6`$ GeV agrees with the $`\varphi _p(E_p)`$ given by Eq. (3) within a factor of $``$ 2 in this energy range Amenomori:2000br . The intrinsic galactic tau neutrinos are produced by $`p+pD_s+X`$, with the $`D_s`$ meson decays into a $`\tau `$ lepton and a $`\nu _\tau `$, while the $`\tau `$ lepton further decays into the second $`\nu _\tau `$ with other particles. We calculate the $`D_s`$ production cross section by the following two approaches: (i) the perturbative QCD (PQCD) and (ii) the quark-gluon string model (QGSM) Kaidalov:xg . In the PQCD approach, we use the CTEQ5 parton distribution functions Lai:1999wy  and apply a $`K`$ factor, $`K=2`$, to account for the NLO corrections Nason:1989zy . With the $`D_s`$ production cross section determined, one can calculate the $`\nu _\tau `$ flux using

$$\varphi _{\nu _\tau }^0=_E^{\mathrm{}}\text{d}E_p\varphi _p(E_p)f(E_p)\frac{1}{\sigma _{pp}(E_p)}\frac{\text{d}\sigma _{pp\nu _\tau +Y}}{\text{d}E},$$
(4)
where $`f(E_p)=R/\lambda _{pp}(E_p)`$ with $`\lambda _{pp}(E_p)`$ the $`pp`$ interaction length and $`R`$ a representative distance in the galaxy along the galactic plane. We take $`R`$ to be $`10`$ kpc, where 1 pc $`310^{18}`$ cm. We have focused on the intrinsic tau neutrino flux along the galactic plane just to obtain the maximal expected tau neutrino flux. The matter density decreases exponentially in the direction orthogonal to the galactic plane, therefore the amount of intrinsic tau neutrino flux decreases by approximately two orders of magnitude for the energy range of our interest.

Another component of galactic tau neutrinos comes from the oscillation of galactic muon neutrinos. The flux of the latter can also be calculated by Eq. (4) with $`\nu _\tau `$ replaced by $`\nu _\mu `$ Stecker:1978ah . In this case, $`\pi ^\pm `$ and $`K^\pm `$ are the dominant intermediate states that decay into muon neutrinos. Since $`\varphi _{\nu _\mu }^0`$ is few orders of magnitude greater than $`\varphi _{\nu _\tau }^0`$ while $`\varphi _{\nu _e}^0`$ is approximately one half of $`\varphi _{\nu _\mu }^0`$, we recover the flavor ratio $`\varphi _{\nu _e}^0:\varphi _{\nu _\mu }^0:\varphi _{\nu _\tau }^0=1:2:0`$ for the galactic neutrinos at the source. From the previous section, we have $`\varphi _{\nu _\tau }=\varphi _{\nu _\mu }^0/2`$. The flux $`\varphi _{\nu _\tau }`$ can be parameterized as

$$E\varphi _{\nu _\tau }(E)=\{\begin{array}{cc}1.510^5(E/\text{GeV})^{2.63}\hfill & \mathrm{for}E<E_1,\hfill \\ 9.510^4(E/\text{GeV})^{2.95}\hfill & \mathrm{for}EE_1,\hfill \end{array}$$
(5)
where $`E_1=4.710^5`$ GeV. The $`E\varphi _{_{\nu _\tau }}(E)`$ is in units of cm-2 s-1 sr-1.

Having discussed the calculation of galactic tau neutrinos, we now turn to the atmospheric tau neutrinos. As said before, for $`E_\nu 10^3`$ GeV, atmospheric $`\nu _\tau `$ flux has only the intrinsic component. We have used the nonperturbative QCD approach mentioned earlier to model the production of $`D_s`$ mesons in the $`pA`$ interactions. We have used the $`\varphi _p(E_p)`$ given by Eq. (3) and the $`Z`$-moment description for the calculation of intrinsic tau neutrino flux Gaisser:vg . We obtain the atmospheric tau neutrino flux by solving a set of cascade equations ACLT ; ext

The results for galactic and atmospheric tau neutrino fluxes, along with the GZK Greisen:1966jv  oscillated tau neutrino flux Engel:2001hd , are presented Fig. 1, where we have used the notation $`\varphi _{\nu _\tau }\text{d}N_{\nu _\tau }/\text{d}(\mathrm{log}_{10}E)`$ . From the figure, we note that the galactic plane oscillated $`\nu _\tau `$ flux dominates over the intrinsic atmospheric $`\nu _\tau `$ flux for $`E510^7`$ GeV, whereas the GZK oscillated tau neutrino flux dominates for $`E510^7`$ GeV. Quantitatively, the atmospheric $`\nu _\tau `$ flux in the horizontal direction is $``$ 5 times smaller than the galactic-plane $`\nu _\tau `$ flux. Furthermore, the downward atmospheric $`\nu _\tau `$ flux is factor of $`8`$ smaller than its horizontal counterpart. Let us recall here that particle physics aspects of intrinsic tau neutrino flux calculation presented here are empirically supported only up to $`\sqrt{s}`$ TeV, which corresponds to $`E_p10^6`$ GeV.

Before we move on, it is instructive to compare the atmospheric $`\nu _\tau `$ and $`\nu _\mu `$ fluxes. We plot these two fluxes for $`E_\nu 10^3`$ GeV in Fig. 2. The atmospheric $`\nu _\mu `$ flux is taken from Ref. Gondolo:1995fq . The atmospheric $`\nu _\mu `$ flux has two components: conventional and prompt components. The former component is due to decays of $`\pi ^\pm `$ and $`K^\pm `$, while the latter component is due to decays of charm hadrons. Although produced more copiously than charm hadrons, $`\pi `$ or $`K`$ meson does not decay efficiently in the air at sufficiently high energy. This effect disfavors the resulting neutrino flux. Indeed, in Fig. 2, the two components of $`\nu _\mu `$ flux cross roughly at $`E_\nu =10^6`$ GeV Gondolo:1995fq . We also observe that the atmospheric $`\nu _\mu `$ and $`\nu _\tau `$ fluxes are comparable for $`E_\nu >10^6`$ GeV, since both fluxes are due to charm production in this energy range.

## 4 The prospects of observations

For downward going or near horizontal high-energy tau neutrinos, the deep inelastic neutrino nucleon scattering, occurring near or inside the detector, produces two showers Learned:1994wg . The first shower is due to a charged current neutrino nucleon deep inelastic scattering, whereas the second shower is due to the (hadronic) decay of the associated $`\tau `$ lepton produced in the first shower. It might be possible for the proposed large neutrino telescopes such as the IceCube to constrain the two showers simultaneously for $`10^6E/\text{GeV}10^7`$, depending on the achievable shower separation capabilities Athar:2000rx . Here, the two showers develop mainly in ice. With such a detection strategy, we estimate the event rate for observing the galactic tau neutrinos. In the above energy range for the tau neutrinos, the event rate in 1 km3 water/ice Cherenkov detector is rather small, about $`510^3\mathrm{yr}^1\mathrm{sr}^1`$. Such a low event rate implies that one can only search for galactic tau neutrinos in the lower energy. Alternatively, one should consider other detection strategies. Since Fig. 1 shows that galactic tau neutrino flux dominates over its atmospheric counterpart for $`E_\nu 10^3`$ GeV, it is desirable to develop strategies for identifying tau neutrinos at TeV energies or even lower because of relatively large absolute $`\nu _\tau `$ flux. The present AMANDA search for all flavor neutrino-induced cascades is not tight enough to constrain/observe our predicted $`\varphi _{\nu _\tau }`$ Ahrens:2002wz .

We point out that the persistent dominance of galactic tau neutrino flux over its atmospheric background is a unique phenomenon among all neutrino flavors. Such a dominance does not occur for $`\nu _e`$ and $`\nu _\mu `$. For example, the result in Sec. 2 tells us that $`\varphi _{\nu _\mu }=\varphi _{\nu _\tau }`$ for the galactic neutrinos. On the other hand, the atmospheric $`\nu _\mu `$ flux is much greater than the atmospheric $`\nu _\tau `$ flux for $`E_\nu <10^5`$ GeV, as can be seen from Fig. 2. Hence the galactic $`\nu _\mu `$ flux no longer dominates over the atmospheric $`\nu _\mu `$ flux for $`E_\nu <10^5`$ GeV.

In conclusion, we have presented our calculations of both the galactic and atmospheric tau neutrino fluxes for $`E_\nu 10^3`$ GeV. The former flux is shown to dominate over the latter. Such a dominance is unique to tau neutrinos. The event rate for galactic tau neutrinos by observing the double showers (with $`10^6E_\nu /\text{GeV}10^7`$) is rather suppressed. Therefore, to observe the galactic tau neutrinos, it is desirable to develop techniques for identifying tau neutrinos at lower energies.

H.A. and K.C. are supported in part by the Physics Division of National Center for Theoretical Sciences under a grant from the National Science Council of Taiwan. G.L.L. and J.J.T. are supported by the National Science Council of Taiwan under the grant numbers NSC91-2112-M-009-019 and NSC91-2112-M-001-024.


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# Silicon Drift Detector Readout Electronics for a Compton Camera

## 1 Introduction

Since the introduction of the Compton imaging principle , Compton cameras found a number of applications ,, and several prototype detectors have been produced. The prototype system under development which is discussed here  is going to be used for studying the application in medical imaging.

The principal idea of the Compton camera is to replace the mechanical collimator of an Anger camera with an electronic collimator. The Compton camera consists of two detector components: the so called scatter detector and the absorption detector. A photon emitted from a source undergoes Compton scattering at the scatter detector where the recoil electron is absorbed and its energy and the location of interaction are determined. The scattered photon leaves the scatter detector and is absorbed in the second detector where the energy and impact position are determined. From this information the source of the incident photon is found to be on the surface of a cone; the so called backprojected cone.

Silicon was found to be the best material for the scatter detector  considering its high Compton to total interaction ratio at the gamma energy of interest (several hundred keV). The prototype will consist of a Silicon Drift Detector (SDD) as the scatter detector and an Anger camera without lead collimator as the absorption detector. The Silicon detector is a monolithic array of 19 cells with an on-chip JFET for the first amplification in every cell. It has been produced by the Max Planck Institute semiconductor laboratory (MPI/HLL). This paper presents the fast frontend and readout electronics designed for this detector and the test results which were obtained with a single cell detector of the same type.

## 2 Setup Overview

The single cell detector has an area of 5 mm2 and it has a circular shape. The thickness of the wafer is 300 $`\mu `$m. The mounting of the detector on a ceramic support and the bonding were done at MPI/HLL. The detector leakage current was around 100 pA. The operational principle of this detector has been explained in several publications elsewhere . The most significant feature of this detector is the on-chip integrated JFET which serves to reduce the stray capacitance and therefore provides a better noise performance compared to other Silicon detectors. This detector type has been used for several applications such as a scintillator based gamma-camera , holography , and spectrometry . Our prototype Compton camera will exploit the new possible application field for it.

### 2.1 Readout Architecture

The standard readout architecture for the SDD consists of a source follower with a source load of a constant current supply and the detector signal is amplified at a voltage-sensitive preamplifier, and then further filtered with a shaper. The transconductance (gm) of an n channel on-chip JFET is about 0.3 mS and the time constant $`\tau `$ = $`\frac{1}{g_m}`$ $``$ Ctotal produces a rise time of $`2.2\tau `$ which is of the order of 300 ns. For the Compton camera application it is important to have fast trigger signals from the first detector. This can be done by a readout of the back side of the detector which is under research at MPI. Our implementation of the readout architecture is shown in Fig 1. Emitter followers were used for gas proportional counters as low noise preamplifiers . In addition to the source-follower at the SDD chip, an emitter follower provided certain advantages. First of all, the signal after the emitter-follower stage becomes more immune to additional stray capacitances. The readout electronics can be placed further away from the detector, provided that the emitter-follower is as near as possible to the detector. Furthermore, the rise time of the preamplified signal decreases considerably, which makes the use of a short shaping time ($`<`$100 ns) possible. The driver transistor for the emitter follower was chosen to be a bipolar junction transistor. The selection of this transistor is based on a dynamic range, a noise contribution and an input capacitance. Fig 2 shows the preamplifier output with and without emitter follower between the detector and the preamplifier. The detector was irradiated by a 55Fe source. The rise time of the signal reduces almost by a factor of 5 with the emitter follower.

### 2.2 Preamplifier

The preamplifier is a modified version of a preamplifier which was used for one of the first prototype SDDs . The gain of the preamplifier is approximately the ratio between the injection capacitor at the input and the feedback capacitor. The voltage step at the output of the preamplifier decays with a time constant of $`R_fC_f=100\mu s`$.

10 channels of the preamplifier have been implemented on a hybrid board by using a thick film technology. (fig 3). The power consumption per channel is around $`130mW`$ according to the SPICE simulations. The deviation from linearity of the preamplifier for one channel is shown in Fig 4a. The measurement was done by applying a voltage step at the input of the preamplifier and measuring the output of it. The average voltage gain is around 15. In Fig 4b the equivalent noise charge (ENC) of the preamplifier as a function of a shaping time is shown.The preamplifier output was connected to a spectroscopy amplifier (model 1413) for performing the noise measurements. The ENC was calculated for an input capacitance of 1 pF. The peak noise voltage of the preamplifier/shaper system was measured with an analog oscilloscope recording the peak-to-peak amplitude at a very low trigger rate ($``$ $`100Hz`$) and this level corresponds to four to five standard deviations. The results obtained by this method were also confirmed with a digital oscilloscope’s (LeCroy 9362) standard deviation measurement. The ENC values are given in rms electron/pF units which translate into 2-4 rms electrons for 300 fF of detector capacitance. So, the noise contribution of this low noise preamplifier to the whole detector and readout system is expected to be very small.

### 2.3 Shaper

An in house developed hybrid shaper was used for the measurements. The shaper is a CR-RC shaper with adjustable pole-zero cancellation and gain. The hybrid board has two shaper channels and 10 of these boards will be used for the 19-cell SDD setup.

The block diagram of the shaper is shown in Fig 5. There is a differential amplifier with variable gain(g) at the first stage. It is followed by a pole-zero(pz) filter and an integrator(int). The waveforms from the shaper, as shown in Fig 6, demonstrate reasonably symmetrical differential outputs on a load of 50 $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

Certain aspects were taken into account when choosing the appropriate shaping time. The rise time of the preamplified signal is about 60 ns. The shaping time should not be much shorter than this value in order to avoid ballistic deficit. The sampling rate of the ADC system is 66 MHz and at least 4 samples should be taken at the region of highest signal to noise ratio. The leakage current of this detector is not the dominating factor, therefore the energy resolution improves with an increasing shaping time. However, it can not be made very long, since we need fast signals. Considering these constraints a peaking time of 100 ns was chosen.

### 2.4 Data Acquisition System

A custom-designed data acquisition (DAQ) system has been developed for the Compton camera prototype , . It consists of channel processors, an event builder and a bus which transfers the data between the channels processors and the event builder. Only one channel of one of the channel processor cards is used for the measurements done with one-cell SDD. The channel processor card is connected to a parallel port interface card and the data are transfered to a computer via this interface. The architecture of the channel processor is shown in Fig 7.

The signals arrive first at the channel processor which has both analog and digital sections. The analog part receives the differential signals, sends them to an ADC and the digitized signals are processed by a Xilinx FPGA. At the FPGA necessary operations such as peak finding, integration and time stamping are applied. The ADCs have as mentioned, 66 MHz of sampling rate and 12 Bit resolution. System performance tests show that the effective resolution is around 11 Bit. Each processed signal reaches the interface board and is transfered to a PC.

## 3 Spectroscopic Measurements

The spectroscopic measurements were done by using the analog and digital readout electronics described at the previous chapters. The differential shaper output is connected to one channel of the single channel processor card. The channel processor is connected to an interface card and the digitized signal is transfered to a PC via parallel port connection. Several bias voltages needed for the SDD are supplied by a custom-designed power supply.

The first measurements were done by using a 55Fe source. The spectrum is shown in Fig. 8a, where both Mn Kα and Kβ peaks can be seen clearly. The equivalent noise charge (ENC) is about 33 rms electrons which includes noise contributions from the detector and the electronics. Fig 8b shows the energy resolution at 5.9 keV as a function of a shaping time. The FWHM value is about 250 eV at a shaping time of 250 ns and increases with longer shaping times.

The aim of the Compton camera project is to be able to use high energetic radionuclides, preferably at least few hundered keV and more. Therefore, it is interesting to study the performance of the SDD with a radioactive source emitting higher energetic photons. The spectrums obtained with 109Cd and 133Ba sources are shown in Fig. 9. The counts are multiplied by 10 for energies above 35 keV in order to see the peaks more clearly.

## 4 Conclusion

A multi-channel silicon drift detector is going to be used as a scatter detector of a Compton camera prototype. The complete chain of analog and digital readout electronics for the SDD has been tested by using a single cell SDD. Faster readout has been obtained by using an emitter follower stage immediately after the on-chip FET of the detector. A low noise hybrid voltage preamplifier and a CR-RC hybrid shaper have been used. The data acquisition was done by using a custom-designed FPGA based readout system. An ENC of 33 rms electron of the overall system has been measured by using a shaper with a rise time of 100 ns.

## 5 Acknowledgment

We would like to thank Prof. Lothar Strüder from MPI and Siegen for providing us with 1-cell Silicon drift detectors. We are much grateful to Dr.Alan Rudge from CERN and Dr.Helmuth Spieler from BNL for the very useful and instructive discussions. Many thanks go to Karim Laihem for his help in preparing the setup. Last but not the least we thank to Dieter Gebauer, Dieter Junge and Bernd Dostal for the preamplifier production.