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# Photon counting strategies with low light level CCDs

## 1 Introduction

Charge coupled devices (CCDs) are ideal detectors in many astronomical applications. They are available in large-format arrays, have high quantum efficiency (QE), a linear response, and, if cooled sufficiently, a very low dark current. Their major shortcoming is readout noise, i.e. the additional noise added by the on-chip output amplifier, where the charge of the detected photo-electrons is converted into an output voltage. Currently, the typical noise levels achieved at slow readout rates (e.g. kHz pixel rates) are little better than $`2`$ electrons per read (Jerram et al., 2001). At the higher readout rates (MHz pixel rates) often used, for example, for adaptive optics and interferometric applications, far poorer performance is the norm, with typical noise levels of $`10100`$ electrons per readout (Jerram et al., 2001).

A novel solution to this problem, in which on-chip gain is used to amplify the signal prior to readout, has recently been demonstrated by E2V Technologies (formerly Marconi Applied Technologies, Jerram et al. (2001)). In this approach, an extended serial register is used to allow electron avalanche multiplication so that a large mean gain can be realised prior to a conventional readout amplifier. Although the effective gain can be very large, the detailed process by which the signal is amplified is stochastic and so introduces additional noise at the output. The effects of this noise, and its correction by a judicious analysis of the output from a typical low light level CCD (hereafter L3CCD) are the primary subjects of this paper.

The content of the paper is as follows. In Section 2 we describe how the L3CCD works and develop a numerical and probabilistic model of the gain mechanism. In Section 3 we discuss techniques for analysing the noisy output signal of an L3CCD and the implications for photometric accuracy and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and we conclude in Section 4.

## 2 Characteristics of the L3CCD

### 2.1 Principles of L3CCD Operation

The L3CCD architecture is similar to that of a normal CCD except that it has extended serial register, called the multiplication register, allowing for additional serial transfers before the signal reaches the ouput amplifier (see Fig. 1). The electrode voltages in the multiplication register can be adjusted so that avalanche multiplication of the electrons occurs as they are moved through each element of this part of the device. At each step, the probability, $`p`$, of producing an additional electron per initial input electron is small — typically this may be $`0.010.02`$ — but the cumulative effect of many transfers can be very large. For example, for a register comprising $`r=591`$ elements (the number of elements in the CCD65 from E2V Technologies), the mean gain, $`g`$, will be $`\left(1+p\right)^r=6629`$, when $`p=0.015`$.

In general, the probability distribution of the output $`x`$, for an input of $`n`$ (integer) photo-electrons, where the mean gain is $`g`$ will be given approximately by (Appendix A and Fig. 2)

$$p\left(x\right)=\frac{x^{n1}\mathrm{exp}(x/g)}{g^n\left(n1\right)!}$$
(1)
when the photon input level is relatively small and the gain is large. This distribution has a mean of $`ng`$ and a variance of $`ng^2`$ and at high light levels is approximately Gaussian. The signal noise introduced by this multiplication process is independent of the photon input. The SNR of an L3CCD output is obtained by combining in quadrature the noise due to the Poisson nature of light with the noise from the multiplication process. At a mean light level $`\mu `$ photons per pixel, this gives an SNR equal to $`\sqrt{\mu }/E`$ where $`E`$ (the excess noise factor, hereafter ENF) is equal to $`\sqrt{2}`$ for an L3CCD output with large gain. The nature of the multiplication process means that in general there will not be a one-to-one mapping between the number of electrons entering and leaving the multiplication register (see Fig. 2), so that in principle there will be always be some uncertainty when estimating the input flux. For a CCD with no gain, $`E`$ is equal to unity, and so to achieve the same SNR when using a large gain, we will need to detect twice as many photons, meaning that the multiplication process has effectively halved the QE of the device. This is a serious loss as astronomers are happy to spend a lot of money on optical coatings to increase system throughput by only a few percent, and do not want to accept the loss in effective QE that the use of an L3CCD implies. To be able to increase the effective QE using signal processing is therefore essential if L3CCDs are to be used effectively for astronomy. This is the main driving force behind our investigation, which aims to use our additional knowledge of the system to allow us to reduce the uncertainty in the measured fluxes.

### 2.2 Reducing the noise

We consider processing strategies which allow up to minimize the stochastic multiplication noise. At very low light levels, much less than one detected photon per imaging pixel, we are able to use the L3CCD in a photon counting mode. At these low light levels, we will either get zero or one photons in a pixel per integration time. This will then result in either a signal much smaller than the amplifier read noise (zero photons), or when a detected photo-electron is amplified, a much larger signal. Provided the mean multiplication gain is much greater than the read noise, we can then treat any signal above some threshold as having arisen from one photon event. Replacing the range of signals we get from a pixel containing one photon (curve 1 in Fig. 2) eliminates the variance in output signal introduced by the multiplication process of the L3CCD and increases the SNR to a value we expect from a conventional CCD with negligible read-out noise.

At higher light levels this technique will not work, since coincidence losses (more than one photon falling on a pixel, being interpreted as one photon) will become increasingly important. Nevertheless, the idea of thresholding can still be helpful if we use more than one threshold. We can see how this might work as follows. An L3CCD with a mean multiplication gain of $`g`$ might give an output signal of $`fg`$. This could be due to a single detected photon that has been amplified by an unusually large amount. Alternatively, if we set thresholds $`T_n`$ and $`T_{n+1}`$ and estimate the flux to be $`n`$ detected photo-electrons before multiplication if the detected signal satisfies $`T_nfg<T_{n+1}`$, then we will be able to maximize our chance of estimating the flux correctly if we choose thresholds correctly. It is the determination of these threshold levels and any corrections that need to be applied in order to conserve flux which we now consider, together with their impact on the L3CCD output SNR.

### 2.3 Thresholding schemes

We have considered many different signal-processing strategies, and provide details of the most useful selection here. We investigate which of these provide the largest SNR improvement. When investigating these strategies, we assume that the data is first thresholded at some level above the on-chip readout noise level (typically $`6\sigma `$ where $`\sigma `$ is the RMS noise due to the readout amplifier) so that amplifier read noise is negligible. Following this, the strategies considered are:

The output signal is divided by the mean gain.

If the output signal is above a single fixed noise threshold it is treated as representing one input photon.

Threshold levels are set where the probability of an output resulting from a mean input of $`n`$ Poisson photons is equal to the probability of the output resulting from a mean input of $`n+1`$ Poisson photons.

The Photon Counting (PC) thresholding strategy will underestimate flux at light levels where there is a non-zero probability of more than one photon being detected on a single pixel. The Poisson Probability (PP) strategy will overestimate the flux, particularly at low light levels, and so a theoretically determined correction is necessary after the detections, which we investigate in section 3.

#### 2.3.1 Threshold boundaries

At a given mean light level, $`\mu `$ photons per pixel, the L3CCD output with mean gain $`g`$ can be estimated by providing the photon input in Eq. 1 with a Poisson probability distribution, giving:

$$p(x,\mu )=\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\mathrm{exp}\left(\mu x/g\right)\mu ^n(x/g)^{n1}}{g(n1)!n!}$$
(2)
where $`p(x,\mu )`$ is the probability that the L3CCD output will be $`x`$ when the mean light level is $`\mu `$, and the mean gain is $`g`$.

We use this distribution to determine threshold boundaries for the PP thresholding strategy, which are given in Table 1. These are placed at the points where the probability of getting an output $`x`$ with a mean light level $`\mu `$ is equal to the probability of getting the same output $`x`$ with a mean light level of $`\mu +1`$ as shown in Fig. 3, i.e. finding $`x`$ such that

$$p(x,a)=p(x,a+1)$$
(3)
where the $`a^{\mathrm{th}}`$ threshold boundary is placed at position $`x`$, and $`p(x,a)`$ is defined in Eq. 2. This results in threshold boundary positions independent of the mean light level. The theoretically predicted mean flux and ENF arising from this strategy is also calculated.

### 2.4 Threshold evaluation

Monte-Carlo simulations were used to verify that our threshold positions were chosen correctly, and that our calculations of photon input estimation and ENF were correct. Input photon streams were generated for differing mean light levels assuming Poisson statistics, and were injected into the first pixel of a multiplication register of length $`r`$. The transfer of this signal to the next pixel of the register was then computed assuming a probability $`p`$ that any given photo-electron would be amplified to give 2 photo-electrons, and a probability $`1p`$ that the transfer took place with no amplification. This process was then repeated a further $`r1`$ times to simulate the output expected for the initial input signal. In this way, the expected output for L3CCDs with differing multiplication probabilities and register lengths could easily be generated for differing input light levels and threshold boundary positions. Large numbers of these output data sequences were then processed to verify that the theoretical ENF and flux estimation calculations were correct.

### 2.5 Figures of merit

In order to assess the performance of different signal-processing strategies, the quality of the signal recovery was quantified using both the ENF and the following misfit function, $`M`$:

$$M=\frac{_\mathrm{i}\left(n_\mathrm{i}y_\mathrm{i}\right)^2}{_\mathrm{i}n_\mathrm{i}},$$
(4)
where $`n_\mathrm{i}`$ is the true input photon count and $`y_\mathrm{i}`$ the value of the input signal estimated from the thresholded L3CCD output, $`x_\mathrm{i}`$. Data sequences comprising many tens of thousands of signal values were generated so as to allow different methods for generating the estimates $`\{y_\mathrm{i}\}`$ from the raw L3CCD outputs $`\{x_\mathrm{i}\}`$. The minimization of this misfit function corresponds to the best input prediction.

An ideal detector will give a misfit of $`M=0`$, and a variance equal to the variance of the input (Poisson) data, $`\mu =\overline{n}`$, with the SNR equal to $`\sqrt{\mu }`$. A non-ideal detector will have greater dispersion in the output, resulting in a reduced SNR of $`\sqrt{\mu }/E`$ where $`E`$ is the ENF.

## 3 Discussion of improvements

When investigating our L3CCD output thresholding strategies, it is helpful to consider three different light level regimes. The first of these is when the mean light level is low, much less than one photon per pixel per readout. Secondly, we consider intermediate light levels, with between about $`0.520`$ photons per pixel per readout, and finally above this, high light levels are considered. This separation allows us to apply the different processing strategies able to maximize the SNR at each light level. Our results are independent of multiplication register lengths typically found on L3CCDs (greater than 100 elements), though a shorter register length will generally give a slightly lower ENF (Eq. 3.3).

As shown in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5, the on-chip amplifier readout noise can have a significant impact on the flux determination if the mean gain is not much larger than the noise threshold level (below which any signal is ignored), particularly at low light levels. By setting the noise threshold level at least $`4\sigma `$ above the mean on-chip readout noise (assuming readout noise with an RMS of $`\sigma `$), and using a mean gain at least ten times greater than the noise threshold level, we are able to minimize the effect of the on-chip readout noise. As light level or gain are increased, the effect of readout noise is reduced.

### 3.1 Low light levels

As discussed in section 2.2, if the mean light level is low (much less than one photon per pixel per readout), we can use a PC thresholding strategy, treating every signal above some noise threshold as representing one photon. This removes all dispersion introduced by the multiplication process and effectively eliminates any additional noise. The signal-to-noise ratio from many such samples scales as $`\sqrt{n}`$ as shown in Fig. 6. The mean gain does not need to be accurately determined, but should be kept well above the readout noise, as mentioned in the previous section. If this is not the case then some real signals will have insufficient amplification and will be treated as noise, leading to inaccuracies in flux estimation.

Coincidence losses will result in nonlinearities in the flux prediction as the light level increases. If the mean light level is $`0.2`$ photons per pixel then two or more photo-electrons will be detected on a pixel less than 2 per cent of the time, resulting in a relatively small coincidence loss which can be corrected easily. However, if the mean light level is $`1`$ photon per pixel, coincidence losses are larger and we would estimate the light level to be only $`0.63`$ photons per pixel. This nonlinearity can be determined and so we can correct the detected photon flux while this nonlinearity remains small, for light levels up to about $`1`$ photon per pixel. At higher light levels, our estimated light level tends towards unity and so we are unable to deduce the correct light level without much uncertainty.

Our PC thresholding strategy may be applied here, but will overestimate the flux, since there is a significant probability that the output from a single photon input will be placed into the second (or greater) threshold bin. Fig. 7 shows the size of the error in flux estimation for our PC and PP thresholding strategies as a function of light level, and hence the nonlinearity correction that should be applied after data from many frames has been thresholded in this way.

### 3.2 Multiple thresholding at intermediate light levels

At intermediate light levels up to about twenty photons per pixel, we cannot use a PC thresholding strategy as coincidence losses become large. However, as discussed previously it is still possible to process the output, reducing the ENF. Our PP processing strategy can be applied at any light level though is most advantageous in this light level regime, and gives decreasing improvements up to about $`20`$ photons per pixel per frame. Above this, the photometric accuracy and ENF are indistinguishable from those obtained using the analogue processing strategy.

Threshold boundaries from the PP processing strategy are independent of light level. Summing thresholded output signal values and applying a nonlinearity correction for light level provides us with a good estimate of the flux. Fig. 7 shows the nonlinearity correction which should be applied. Without this, the flux will be overestimated at lower light levels since there is always a significant probability that the output from a single photon will be interpreted as two or more photons.

We find that theoretical results and those from our Monte-Carlo calculations agree almost perfectly, as would be expected, as shown for example by Fig. 7.

### 3.3 High light levels

At high light levels, the input photon (Poisson) distribution becomes symmetrical about the mean light level, having the form of a Gaussian. The multiplication noise distribution also tends to a Gaussian, and so the L3CCD output distribution is Gaussian.

We treat the output as we would a conventional CCD, simply dividing by the mean gain, using the analogue processing strategy. This does not remove any of the dispersion introduced by the multiplication process, giving an ENF, $`E`$, of (Matsuo et al., 1985)

$`E^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g}}+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{g^{1/r}}}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{g^{1+1/r}}}`$
$``$ $`2`$
where $`r`$ is the multiplication register length, $`g`$ the mean gain, and the approximation is valid when $`r`$ and $`g`$ are large, as is usual for an L3CCD. The SNR is then $`\sqrt{n/2}`$, effectively halving the QE, and the misfit function (Eq. (4)) is also greater than for other thresholding strategies, as shown in Fig. 8.

This analogue processing technique may be applied at any light level, though due to the large ENF, other methods can give an improvement in SNR, particularly at light levels below about 20 photons per pixel per readout. At very high light levels, where the mean light level is a few times the square of the on-chip amplifier read noise of the L3CCD (typically $`50100\mathrm{e}^{}`$ for fast readout, Jerram et al. (2001)), the multiplication gain can be turned off, and then no statistical noise is added, giving Poisson shot noise scaling as $`\sqrt{n}`$. This is the mode in which a conventional CCD is used.

### 3.4 Excess noise factors

An ENF of $`\sqrt{2}`$ effectively halves the QE of the CCD, which is a serious loss. Fig. 6 compares the ENF for various thresholding modes, as a function of light level. We can see that a combination of PC and PP thresholding strategies allows us to reduce the ENF for light levels up to about twenty photons per pixel.

It is interesting to note that the ENF tends towards zero for the PC strategy at high light levels. This is because we always interpret every signal as one photon, and so the result has no noise. However, in this mode, we are unable to predict the input flux, and so it is useless at high light levels, as seen from the misfit function (Fig. 8).

For the PP thresholding strategy, the ENF tends towards $`\sqrt{2}`$ as the light level increases, and above about twenty photons per pixel we see that there is little advantage in thresholding, with the raw L3CCD output giving similar noise performance. However, thresholding does lead to a significant improvement in noise performance, reducing the ENF up to twenty photons per pixel.

We also see that the misfit function remains low when we apply these thresholding schemes (Fig. 8) using a combination of the PC and PP thresholding strategies. The PC thresholding strategy only performs well for light levels up to about 0.5 photons per pixel, and should not be used above 1 photon per pixel.

### 3.5 Photometric correction

Fig. 7 shows that a nonlinearity correction for flux will be required during post-processing for light levels greater than about 0.1 photons per pixel when using a PC thresholding strategy, and at light levels less than about 20 photons per pixel when using a PP thresholding strategy. We can correct the flux for a PP thresholding strategy approximately according to

$$I_{\mathrm{corrected}}\frac{I_{\mathrm{est}}}{1+0.7\mathrm{exp}(I_{\mathrm{est}}/3)}$$
(6)
where $`I_{\mathrm{e}st}`$ is the result of the initial thresholding and summation process. The result of this correction is shown in Fig. 7. Similarly, the flux for a PC thresholding strategy can be corrected according to

$$I_{\mathrm{corrected}}=\mathrm{ln}\left(1I_{\mathrm{est}}\right)$$
(7)
though the error in corrected flux becomes large as $`I_{\mathrm{est}}1`$.

### 3.6 Lucky imaging

As an example of where thresholding techniques can be used, we consider the Lucky Imaging technique (Baldwin et al., 2001), as used in astronomy to overcome atmospheric effects on medium sized telescopes. Snapshot images are taken with very short exposure times (of order 10-30ms). Many such images are taken, and the images with least atmospheric smearing are kept and added together after centroiding. An L3CCD is required since the light levels will be very low.

We can threshold each data frame using both the PC and PP thresholding strategies and summing with previous frames immediately (in parallel since these thresholding schemes are applied after detection). At the end of the observing run, these two images can then be combined after applying the nonlinearity correction for flux, depending on whether the signal on each pixel is low or high.

### 3.7 Sources of errors

Apart from when using the photon counting (single thresholding) strategy, we require knowledge of the mean gain. This can be controlled to about 1 per cent (Mackay et al., 2001) which, with gains of order 1000, requires millivolt stability for the clock-high L3CCD electrode voltage. Errors here will only have a small effect on our estimates at low light levels and at higher light levels, the flux estimate error will be proportional to the error in gain.

## 4 Conclusions

We have studied the stochastic gain process of L3CCDs and characterised the noise added by this multiplication process. For different signal level regimes, we have investigated the best processing strategy for the L3CCD output with regard to estimating the true photon input.

In summary, we find that:

1. Single thresholding of the L3CCD output can be applied accurately for photon rates up to about 0.5 photons per pixel per readout with a small nonlinearity correction.
2. Multiple thresholding (binning) of the L3CCD output can be applied at any light level, and is most advantageous with light levels between 0.5-20 photons per pixel per readout. This can reduce the excess noise factor introduced by the multiplication process from $`\sqrt{2}`$ to $`1.1`$ at light levels of about one photon per pixel.
3. Using a combination of single and multiple thresholding strategies leads to further improvement, decreasing the excess noise factor to unity at lower light levels.
4. If the gain is not known accurately, threshold boundaries will be chosen wrongly. However, the gain can be controlled to about 1 per cent, so this effect is small.

Our recommendation when using L3CCDs at low light levels (less than 0.5 photons per pixel per readout) is that a single threshold processing strategy on the L3CCD output should be used. At higher light levels up to about 20 photons per pixel, threshold boundaries placed with the PP thresholding strategy should be used. A nonlinearity correction should then be used, leading to correct flux estimation and an improvement in SNR performance from $`\sqrt{n/2}`$ to $`\sqrt{n}/1.1`$ in the best case, without requiring an initial estimate of the mean light level. At high light levels greater than about 20 photons per pixel, using the raw output does not lead to worse SNR performance than that obtained with other thresholding techniques.

Since L3CCDs provide the best SNR performance at low light levels using a single threshold, we recommend that if possible, they are always used in this regime, increasing the frame rate if necessary to keep the number of photons per pixel low ($`<0.5`$). A new controller being developed for L3CCDs will allow pixel rates of up to 30MHz, allowing the potential of L3CCDs to be maximized.

## Acknowledgements

AB would like to thank Bob Tubbs for useful comments and discussions.

## Appendix A Probability Distribution

Matsuo et al. (1985) give the output probability distribution for a electron multiplication device (e.g. an L3CCD), with $`r`$ elements in the multiplication register, and a probability $`P`$ of producing an extra electron at each stage, for a single photon input, as

$`\begin{array}{ccccc}p_r(x)\hfill & =& (1P)p_{r1}(x)\hfill & & \\ & & +P_{k=0}^xp_{r1}(xk)p_{r1}(k),\hfill & \hfill x,r1& \\ p_r(0)\hfill & =& 0,\hfill & \hfill r1& \\ p_0(x)\hfill & =& \delta _{1,x},\hfill & \hfill r1& \end{array}`$

If $`r`$ is large and $`P`$ is small, we find that this can be approximated to an exponential distribution:

$$P_1(x)=g^1\mathrm{exp}(xg^1)$$
(8)
where $`P_1(x)`$ signifies the probability of an output $`x`$ for a single photon input, with mean gain $`g`$. This gives $`<x>=\sigma _x^2=g`$, as expected.

To generate the probability distribution for two input electrons, we simply take the convolution of Eq. 8 with itself. This gives:

$`P_2(c)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{x=2}{\overset{c}{}}}g^2\mathrm{exp}(xg^1)\mathrm{exp}((cx)g^1)`$ (9)
$`=`$ $`g^2(x1)\mathrm{exp}(xg^1)`$
Likewise, the probability distributions for larger input electron counts can be derived using

$$P_n(c)=P_{n1}(x)P_1(x)=\underset{x=n}{\overset{c}{}}P_{n1}(x)\times P_1(cx)$$

where $``$ represents convolution. This gives:

$`P_3(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\left(x2\right)\left(x+1\right)\mathrm{exp}(xg^1)}{g^32!}}`$
$`P_4(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\left(x^37x6\right)\mathrm{exp}(xg^1)}{g^43!}}`$ (10)
$`P_5(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\left(x^4+2x^313x^2278x+936\right)\mathrm{exp}(xg^1)}{g^54!}}`$
where $`P_n(x)`$ is valid from $`xn`$ (and is in fact zero at $`x=n1`$). We can see that for moderately large $`x`$ (and $`x`$ usually will be large over most of the distribution, since the gain is large) we can simplify to give a general probability distribution:

$$P_n(x)=\frac{x^{n1}\mathrm{exp}(xg^1)}{g^n\left(n1\right)!}$$
(11)
which has an expectation $`ng`$ and variance $`ng^2`$, and fits the actual distribution almost perfectly. Variations on this are possible, for example taking more care at small $`x`$, though since the overall differences are small, the simplified version is used here. This approximation is not valid for large $`n`$, and a Gaussian distribution with the same mean and variance should be used instead.


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# Planet - Disk Symbiosis

## 1 Introduction

One of the most important scientific developments of the nineties was the discovery of extrasolar planets - planets that orbit other stars. Currently, more than a hundred are known, along with about a dozen systems containing more than one planet. The basic data, masses and orbits, have revealed two major surprises: (I) Jovian mass planets with short period orbits; (II) Isolated planets with large orbital eccentricities.

Current planet formation theories fail to account for the formation of giant planets on short period orbits. Instead, there is a general consensus that these planets migrated inward from where they were born. Theoretical work done in the eighties and nineties established that angular momentum and energy exchanged between planet and disk at discrete Lindblad resonances would result in the rapid migration of the planet (Goldreich & Tremaine, 1980), and that almost invariably the migration would be inward (Ward, 1986; Artymowicz, 1993b, a). In turn, for sufficiently massive planets, this exchange would modify the disk’s density profile. A familiar aspect of the latter phenomenon is the opening of a gap around the orbit of a massive planet which locks the orbital evolution of the planet to that of the disk, a behavior referred to as type-II migration (Ward, 1997).

## 2 Accretion

Disk accretion is driven by the outward transport of angular momentum. The mechanism by which this is accomplished in protostellar disks is uncertain. Molecular viscosity is far too small to be effective. Magnetorotational instability is a more plausible candidate, but the disk’s electrical conductivity may be inadequate to sustain it.

Here we examine the possibility that torques from embedded planets drive disk accretion. This idea is not new. Stimulated by Larson’s (Larson, 1989) suggestion that spiral waves might drive disk accretion, Goodman & Rafikov (2001) proposed that these waves could be excited by planets with masses too small to open gaps. However, they ignored the migration of the planets. A general argument given below establishes that subcritical planet’s would disappear before significant disk accretion could take place.

The critical mass required for gap formation in a disk without any intrinsic viscosity is less than one earth mass (Hourigan & Ward, 1984; Ward & Hourigan, 1989; Rafikov, 2002). Thus subcritical planets are composed of elements heavier than helium which comprise a fraction $`f`$ of order a percent of the disk’s mass. Through the torques they exert at Lindblad resonances, these planets transfer angular momentum outward from material interior to their orbits to that external to their orbits. The dominant resonances are located about a distance $`h`$, the scale height of the disk, inward and outward from the planet’s orbit. Therefore these two rates are almost equal. Only the small fractional difference, of order $`h/r`$, causes the planet to drift inward. Thus each planet transfers angular momentum across its orbit at a rate that is larger by a factor $`r/h`$ than that at which its angular momentum decays.

Although the major planet-disk interactions occur at distance $`h`$ from the planet’s orbit, density waves carry the angular momentum farther away and deposit it at distance $`\lambda `$ where typically $`h<\lambda <r`$. So the contribution from each planet to the local luminosity of angular momentum through the disk is a factor $`\lambda /h`$ greater than the rate at which it loses angular momentum. If subcritical planets were the sole source of the disk’s angular momentum luminosity, the timescale for planet accretion would be related to that for disk accretion by a factor $`Ff(\lambda /h)`$. Goodman & Rafikov (2001) estimate $`\lambda /h2`$ for earth size planets. Since the total mass of subcritical planets is at most a percent of the disk mass ($`f<0.01`$), they could not be responsible for the accretion of more than two percent of the disk mass.

Although subcritical planets are unable to drive disk accretion, massive planets might. They reside in gaps and accrete at the same rate as the surrounding disk material. If they were the sole source of disk accretion, their number density and masses would affect the accretion rate but be irrelevant to the final outcome. Suppose there were one giant planet per logarithmic radius interval. Then gap widths would be of order the radius and one sided torques from individual planets would have approximate magnitudes given by $`(M_p/M_{})^2\mathrm{\Sigma }r^2(\mathrm{\Omega }r)^2`$, where $`M_p`$ and $`M_{}`$ are the masses of the planet and the star, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is the disk’s surface density, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the orbital angular velocity, and $`r`$ is the orbital radius. Under these conditions, the angular momentum luminosity in the disk would be of order the one sided torque. This would yield an accretion timescale of order $`(M_{}/M_p)^2\mathrm{\Omega }^1`$ provided $`M_p\mathrm{\Sigma }r^2`$. Note that this timescale is independent of the disk mass and demonstrates that Jupiter size planets could cause a disk to accrete in about a million years. Higher rates would occur if the planets were more massive or numerous subject to the constraint that the mass in planets does not exceed the disk mass.

## 3 Eccentricities and Gaps

We adopt standard parameters for use in numerical evaluations. They are: $`r=1\mathrm{AU}`$, $`M_d/M_{}=10^2`$ for disk to star mass ratio where $`M_d`$ is the mass inside $`r=1\mathrm{AU}`$, $`\mu =M_p/M_{}10^3`$ for the planet to star mass ratio, and $`h/r0.04`$ for the disk aspect ratio. Also, in this section, we treat the viscosity with the customary approximation and choose $`\alpha =10^4`$ which, combined with our disk mass and scaleheight, sets a mass accretion rate $`\dot{M}10^8`$ solar masses per year. This choice is consistent with observational determinations of accretion rates onto 1My old T Tauri stars (Hartmann et al., 1998). Higher accretion rates are typical at earlier stages, but any giant planets that might have formed then would have been consumed by their parent stars. As we are concerned with planets that survived, it is the later accretion stages that are relevant to our investigation . If, as we speculate in the previous section, there is no intrinsic viscosity and accretion is entirely driven by planet torques, then the effective $`\alpha `$ may be even lower than the value adopted above.

Goldreich & Sari (2003) (Hereafter GS) suggest that planet-disk interactions might have given rise to the large eccentricities of extrasolar planets. The important interactions are those at Lindblad and corotation resonances. For sufficiently small eccentricity, the interactions are linear. In this limit, those at ordinary Lindblad resonances, which excite eccentricity, are slightly less effective than those at corotation resonances, which damp it. However, nonlinear saturation of the corotation resonances occurs at small eccentricities (Goldreich & Tremaine (1981); Ogilvie & Lubow (2003); GS) so a finite amplitude instability leading to eccentricity growth is a distinct possibility. Perhaps the most serious concern with the scenario by which eccentricity grows due to planet disk interactions involves the relative importance of eccentricity damping due to apsidal waves, although it is weaker than previously thought (GS).

GS consider eccentricity evolution in the context of steady-state gaps. Here we argue that conditions during gap formation are more favorable for eccentricity growth. This is significant since it is the initial stage of eccentricity growth that is the most problematic.

Next we estimate the minimal eccentricity required to saturate the corotation resonances when a gap has just formed. At this stage its width, $`\mathrm{w}a/mr`$, is the larger of the disk’s scale height and the planet’s Hill radius, each of which are much smaller than the equilibrium width. Corotation saturation occurs when the density gradient is flattened over a scale $`\delta =(em\mu )^{1/2}r`$. Our story involves the comparison of several rates, or inverse timescales, namely:

(i) The rate at which the density gradient is flattened at a first order corotation resonance by the corotation torque,

$$t_{sat}^1\mu ^{1/2}e^{1/2}\left(\frac{r}{\mathrm{w}}\right)^{3/2}\mathrm{\Omega }.$$
(1)
(ii) The rate at which viscosity reestablishes the original density gradient over a scale $`\delta `$,

$$t_{vis}^1=\frac{\nu }{\delta ^2}\frac{\alpha }{\mu e}\left(\frac{\mathrm{w}}{r}\right)\left(\frac{h}{r}\right)^2\mathrm{\Omega }.$$
(2)
(iii) The rate at which a gap of size $`\mathrm{w}`$ is opened by principal Lindblad resonances,

$$t_{gap}^1\frac{1}{\mathrm{w}}\frac{d\mathrm{w}}{dt}\mu ^2\left(\frac{r}{\mathrm{w}}\right)^5\mathrm{\Omega }$$
(3)
(iv) The eccentricity growth rate assuming only Lindblad resonances are active,

$$t_e^1\frac{1}{e}\frac{de}{dt}\mu ^2\left(\frac{r}{\mathrm{w}}\right)^4\left(\frac{M_d}{M_p}\right)\mathrm{\Omega }.$$
(4)
When corotation resonances are unsaturated, eccentricity damps at a rate which is smaller by a factor of about twenty (Goldreich & Tremaine, 1980).

For the eccentricity to grow, the corotation resonances must saturate. During gap formation, this requires both $`t_{sat}<t_{vis}`$ and $`t_{sat}<t_{gap}`$. Only the former is relevant for a steady state gap, and it leads to the criterion derived by Goldreich & Tremaine (1981) and Ogilvie & Lubow (2003). GS estimate a critical initial eccentricity of about $`1\%`$ for eccentricity growth in equilibrium gaps where torques at principal Lindblad resonances balance the large scale viscous torque. However, as we now show, smaller gaps lead to less stringent constraints on the required initial eccentricity.

The requirement $`t_{sat}<t_{vis}`$ is satisfied provided

$$e>\frac{\alpha ^{2/3}}{\mu }\left(\frac{\mathrm{w}}{r}\right)^{5/3}\left(\frac{h}{r}\right)^{4/3},$$
(5)
and $`t_{sat}<t_{gap}`$ provided

$$e>\mu ^3\left(\frac{r}{\mathrm{w}}\right)^7.$$
(6)
Thus saturation is most readily achieved at a width

$$\frac{\mathrm{w}}{r}\frac{\mu ^{6/13}}{\alpha ^{1/13}}\left(\frac{r}{h}\right)^{2/13}0.14,$$
(7)
provided the initial eccentricity satisfies

$$e_0>\frac{\alpha ^{7/13}}{\mu ^{3/13}}\left(\frac{h}{r}\right)^{14/13}10^3.$$
(8)
Saturation of corotation resonances is not a sufficient condition for significant eccentricity growth during gap formation. In addition, the growth rate of eccentricity must exceed that of the gap. This occurs for

$$\frac{\mathrm{w}}{r}>\frac{M_p}{M_d}0.1,$$
(9)
in other words, once the mass expelled from the gap exceeds the planet’s mass. Corotation resonances are saturated at this width provided the initial eccentricity satisfies

$$e_0>\frac{\alpha ^{2/3}}{\mu }\left(\frac{h}{r}\right)^{4/3}\left(\frac{M_p}{M_d}\right)^{5/3}6\times 10^4.$$
(10)
Significant eccentricity growth requires the initial eccentricity to satisfy both inequalities (8) and (10).

Note that eccentricity decays if corotation resonances are less than $`5\%`$ saturated. However, significant decay during gap growth can only occur once $`\mathrm{w}>20(M_p/M_d)r`$. This is avoided provided the initial eccentricity satisfies the additional constraint

$$e_0>10^{12}\mu ^4\left(\frac{M_d}{M_{}}\right)^710^{14},$$
(11)
which is relevant only for lighter planets or more massive disks (e.g. a planet with mass ten times smaller than Jupiter’s in a tenth of a solar mass disk). Subsequently, we ignore the possibility of significant eccentricity decay during gap formation.

How does a planet’s eccentricity grow as its gap widens after the corotation resonances are fully saturated? By dividing the gap growth rate by the eccentricity growth rate we arrive at

$$e=e_0\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\mathrm{w}\mathrm{w}_0}{a}\frac{M_d}{M_p}\right).$$
(12)
If the disk is ten times more massive than the planet, by the time the gap approaches its equilibrium width, comparable to the radius of the disk, equation (12) predicts that the eccentricity would have grown by of order ten e-folds. The resulting radial excursions of the planet would cause it to pass beyond the gap edges. We expect that before this happens, additional damping that we have not modeled would come into play and limit eccentricity growth. From then on it is likely that the eccentricity would be coupled to the gap width such that $`e\mathrm{w}/r`$. Our conclusions about eccentricity evolution as a function of gap width are depicted in figure 1.

To conclude the discussion of corotation resonances, we mention the possibility of resonance overlap. This seems to be particularly relevant here as we are interested in eccentricity evolution when the gaps are narrow, the fractional distance between resonances, $`\mathrm{w}^2/r^2`$, is small, and the fractional width of the resonances, $`(\mu er/\mathrm{w})^{1/2}`$, is relatively large. Resonances overlap if

$$e>\frac{1}{\mu }\left(\frac{\mathrm{w}}{r}\right)^5.$$
(13)
The evolution of eccentricity in this regime requires further investigation. However, as shown in the figure, for our fiducial parameters most of the evolution occurs below this eccentricity, so resonance overlap probably does not play an important role even during gap formation.

Apsidal waves also promote eccentricity damping. GS found their influence to be marginal for a gap at its equilibrium width. Since the relative importance of apsidal waves varies as the cube of the gap width, they are unlikely to play a major role when the gap is well below its equilibrium size. Of course, for a planet to maintain its orbital eccentricity, the apsidal waves must also be unimportant at the equilibrium gap width. But provided the eccentricity can grow when the gap is narrow, by the time the gap approaches its full width the corotation resonances will be fully saturated. Then eccentricity maintenance merely requires that eccentricity damping by apsidal waves be weaker than eccentricity excitation by first order Lindblad resonances, a criterion that is satisfied provided (GS):

$$\left(\frac{r}{h}\right)^4\left(\frac{M_p}{M_{}}\right)^2<12.$$
(14)
This requirement is about a factor of twenty less stringent than that derived by GS for the apsidal wave torque to be less important than the small difference between Lindblad and partially saturated corotation resonance torques. In particular, this looser criterion is amply satisfied by Jupiter mass planets at $`r=1\mathrm{AU}`$.

## 4 Planet Disk Symbiosis

We have shown that a symbiotic relation might exist between massive planets and the disks in which they form. This relation would explain the similarity between timescales estimated to be needed for planet growth and those derived from observations of disk accretion, because disk accretion would only commence after massive planets form. In this scenario, most planets commit suicide by promoting the accretion of the disk to which they are locked. That some planets survive implies that not all of the disk material is accreted. Some other mechanism, such as evaporation, might remove the final remnants of the disks.

The interplay between eccentricity excitation and gap formation is a more subtle aspect of this symbiosis. Once a planet attains a sufficient mass, perhaps a few earth masses, it rapidly accretes an envelope of hydrogen and helium and begins to open a gap in its disk. Provided the planet’s orbit is endowed with a small initial eccentricity, the corotation resonances saturate while the gap width is not much larger than the disk scale height $`h`$. However, despite their saturation, significant eccentricity growth does not occur until the mass cleared from the gap becomes comparable to the planet’s mass. Subsequently, the rate of fractional eccentricity increase exceeds that of the gap width. From then on it is plausible that the eccentricity maintains a value of order the fractional gap width, $`e\mathrm{w}/r`$. A schematic description of eccentricity and gap growth is displayed in the figure.

Eccentricity growth during gap opening alleviates two of the major concerns raised by Goldreich & Sari (2003) in their discussion of possible eccentricity growth for planets in steady-state gaps. It reduces both the relative importance of the apsidal torque and the required value of the initial eccentricity. The case for eccentricity growth due to planet disk interactions becomes more promising with this new analysis.

This research was supported in part by an NSF grant AST-0098301 and NASA grant NAG5-12037.


text:
# Phonon scattering in quasicrystalline i-Al72Pd19.5Mn8.5: A study of the low-temperature thermal conductivity

## 1 Introduction

Quasicrystals are materials which exhibit long-range structural order without periodicity. This feature allows for the existence of ’forbidden’ crystal symmetries. For example, icosahedral quasicrystals exhibit diffraction patterns with fivefold symmetry axes and for decagonal quasicrystals tenfold symmetry axes are observed. This particular character of the structure raises the question of how the dynamics of quasilattices is best described and whether the aperiodicity implies that the vibration spectra of quasicrystals are similar to those of amorphous materials. A particular characteristics of amorphous materials is the existence of so-called tunnelling states, introduced by Philips  and Anderson et al. . The tunneling-states model assumes the existence of structural configurations of the atoms which are almost degenerate in energy. These configurations or states are separated by low potential barriers through which ”tunnelling” between these states is possible. The energy spread of these states is of the order of 1 K$`k_B`$ and hence their influence on physical properties is most significant at temperatures in the sub-Kelvin range.

Many experimental attempts have been made in order to find evidence for tunnelling states in quasicrystals. Suitable experiments for this purpose are low-temperature measurements of the thermal conductivity and ultrasound propagation. The thermal conductivity data of Chernikov and co-workers  were interpreted as indicating that below 1 K, the main phonon scatterers are tunnelling states. Experiments probing the sound-velocity variation in decagonal *d*-AlNiCo quasicrystals (decagonal quasicrystals are built from quasicrystal line planes which are stacked periodically), indicated an anisotropy in the tunnelling-state density  in the sense that it is four times larger in the quasiperiodic direction than it is in the direction along the periodic stacking. The same experiment made on *i*-AlLiCu icosahedral quasicrystals  showed that the importance of tunnelling-states is more pronounced in samples with a higher degree of quasicrystalline order. From these observations it was suggested that tunnelling states are intrinsic to quasicrystalline structures. Bert et al. measured ultrasound attenuation in icosahedral *i*-AlCuFe  and derived a density of tunnelling-states which is comparable with those of metallic glasses. Results of low-temperature thermal-conductivity and ultrasound measurements on a quasicrystal of the *i*-AlPdMn family  demonstrated that the quasilattice dynamics is very similar to that of amorphous solids. Legault et al. , on the basis of thermal conductivity below 1 K, found that, besides tunnelling states, stacking-fault like defects have to be taken into account to explain the data. Ultrasound experiments on a single-grain quasicrystal of *i*-MgZnY  revealed features that were claimed to reflect glassy behavior. Thermal conductivity data measured on another single-grain sample of the same family, however, gave no evidence for the presence of tunnelling states .

In order to further broaden the existing data base, we made measurements of the thermal conductivity of a member of the *i*-AlPdMn family, covering a broad range of temperatures between 0.4 K and 300 K. The data were analyzed employing a Debye-type formula for the thermal conductivity. Results of the analysis were supported by the transmission electron microscopy experiment.

## 2 Experimental

The sample with the composition *i*-Al72Pd19.5Mn8.5 was grown with a self-flux technique  at Ames Laboratory by I.R. Fisher and P.C. Canfield. Measurements of the thermal conductivity between 0.4 K and 300 K were performed at ETH Zürich employing an absolute steady-state heat-flow technique. The sample was in the form of a bar, with dimensions 0.5$`\times `$0.6$`\times `$5.9 mm3 and a mass of 7.3 mg. The thermal flux through the sample was generated by a 1 k$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ RuO2 chip-resistor, glued to one end of the sample, while the other end was thermally anchored to a copper heat sink. Two gold wires, 50 $`\mu `$m in diameter, were attached to the sample and were used as thermal contacts for the thermocouple and the resistor thermometers (see below); EpoTek H20E was used as a glue. Between 5 K and 300 K, the thermal conductivity was measured in a helium-4 cryostat, using a 25 $`\mu `$m chromel-gold (doped with 0.07% Fe) differential thermocouple. Between 0.4 K and 4 K, a helium-3 refrigerator was used as the cooling device. For monitoring the temperature gradient of the sample in this temperature regime, two 10 k$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ RuO2, *in-situ* calibrated resistors were used. As shown in Ref. , heat losses due to radiation and conduction through the contact wires can be neglected with this set-up at temperatures below 300 K.

Transmission electron microscopy experiments (TEM) were performed at the Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia. For these purpose, material obtained from the same sample that was used for the thermal conductivity experiment was cut into 3-$`\mu `$m discs, mechanically ground to a thickness of 100 $`\mu `$m, and dimpled down to 20 $`\mu `$m in the disc centre. Transmissive regions in the specimen’s centre were finally achieved by ion milling using 4 kV Ar+ at an incidence angle of 12o. Structural features of the sample were examined in a Jeol, 2000FX microscope, which was operated at 100 keV and a beam current of about 0.25 nA. During specimen observation no damage of the sample by the electron beam and no evidence for significant specimen contamination were noticed.

## 3 Results and Discussion

### 3.1 Electronic thermal conductivity

The measured temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity $`\kappa (T)`$ of *i*-Al72Pd19.5Mn8.5 is shown as open circles in the main panel of Figure 1. The value of $`\kappa (T)`$ at 300 K is 4.6 W/mK. Due to the uncertainty in controlling the sample geometry, the uncertainty of this value is of the order of $`\pm `$10%. This rather low value of the thermal conductivity is typical for quasicrystals, and is a consequence of the non-periodicity of the lattice, which hampers the itineracy of lattice excitations, except for those with small wave vectors. The electronic contribution to the thermal conductivity $`\kappa _{el}(T)`$ is usually estimated by employing the law of Wiedemann and Franz (WF)  in the form

$$\kappa _{el}^{WF}(T)=\frac{\pi ^2}{3}\frac{k_B^2}{e^2}\sigma (T)T,$$
(1)
where the prefactor $`L_0=\left(\pi ^2/3\right)\left(k_B^2/e^2\right)`$ is the Lorenz number, $`\sigma (T)`$ is the electrical conductivity and $`T`$ is the temperature. The above formula is valid for elastic scattering. *Ab initio* calculations of the Lorenz number for *i*-AlCuFe quasicrystals  indicated that at room temperature it is about 40% larger than $`L_0`$ and, with decreasing temperature, approaches the value of $`L_0`$. To calculate $`\kappa _{el}^{WF}(T)`$, we used the electrical conductivity data obtained from corresponding measurements on the same sample . A comparison with the measured $`\kappa (T)`$ data showed that the electronic contribution is only of the order of 1% and therefore any deviations from the WF behaviour are insignificant.

### 3.2 Quasilattice thermal conductivity

The quasilattice contribution to the thermal conductivity $`\kappa _{qlatt}(T)`$ is obtained by subtracting the calculated electronic part from the measured total thermal conductivity and hence

$$\kappa _{qlatt}(T)=\kappa (T)\kappa _{el}(T).$$
(2)
Since the quasicrystalline structure is not periodic, only long-wavelength phonons can be defined in quasilattices with some confidence. Inelastic neutron (INS)  and X-ray (IXS)  scattering experiments on samples of the *i*-AlPdMn quasicrystal family revealed the existence of isotropic acoustic phonon modes with wave vectors $`q<0.3`$ Å and energies $`E<6`$ meV. For energies higher than 12 meV, dispersionless vibrational states were identified. The energy of 6 meV corresponds to a thermal energy of approximately 50 K$`k_B`$ and thus justifies the use of the Debye-type approximation for analyzing the thermal conductivity data at temperatures less than 50 K. The relevant Debye-type equation reads

$$\kappa _{Debye}=\frac{k_B}{2\pi ^2\overline{v}}\left(\frac{k_B}{\mathrm{}}\right)^3T^3_0^{\theta /T}\tau (x)\frac{x^4e^x}{\left(e^x1\right)^2}𝑑x,$$
(3)
where $`k_B`$ and $`\mathrm{}`$ are Boltzmann’s and the reduced Planck constant, respectively; $`\overline{v}`$ is the average sound velocity, $`\theta `$ the Debye temperature, $`\tau (x)`$ the phonon relaxation time and $`x=\mathrm{}\omega /k_BT`$, where $`\mathrm{}\omega `$ is the phonon energy. Ultrasonic data  provided values for the transversal ($`v_T=3593`$) m/s) and the longitudinal ($`v_L=6520`$) m/s) sound velocities. Since neutron and X-ray scattering experiments have shown that the excitation spectra of vibrational states in this alloy are isotropic, the average sound velocity $`\overline{v}`$ can be obtained using the relation

$$\frac{3}{\overline{v}^3}=\frac{1}{v_L^3}+\frac{2}{v_T^3}.$$
(4)
From this equation $`\overline{v}=4004`$ m/s. The Debye temperature $`\theta `$, was calculated by Li and Liu , based on the specific heat data of Wälti et al.  . They obtained $`\theta =492`$ K.

In equation (3) the different phonon scattering processes are incorporated in the relaxation time $`\tau (x)`$. As usual, we assume that Matthiessen’s rule is valid, and the mutual independence of the scattering processes is reflected in

$$\tau ^1=\underset{i}{}\tau _i^1,$$
(5)
where $`\tau _i^1`$ is a scattering rate related to the $`i`$-th scattering channel. At the lowest temperatures reached in our experiment, the Casimir scattering, i.e., scattering of phonons at sample boundaries may contribute significantly to the total phonon relaxation rate. The corresponding scattering rate is given by the phonon mean free path $`l`$ and the average sound velocity $`\overline{v}`$ by

$$\tau _{Cas}^1=\frac{\overline{v}}{l}.$$
(6)
Inserting (6) into equation (3) leads to $`\kappa _{Debye}(T)T^3`$, if this scattering process is dominating.

At the temperatures defined by the energy spread of tunneling states ($`1`$ K$`k_B`$), transitions between states that are separated by a shallow barrier may be induced by phonons. This type of phonon scattering is absent in crystals and this is the reason why at low temperatures, the temperature dependences of the lattice thermal conductivities of crystals and amorphous solids differ in a very characteristic way. Tunnelling states act as scattering centres for phonons, and the corresponding phonon scattering rate is given by

$$\tau _{ts}^1=\frac{\overline{P}\gamma ^2}{\rho \overline{v}^2}\pi \omega \mathrm{tanh}\left(\frac{\mathrm{}\omega }{2k_BT}\right),$$
(7)
where $`\overline{P}`$ is the density of tunnelling states, $`\gamma `$ the average phonon-tunnelling states coupling constant and $`\rho `$ the mass density. A quantity $`C`$, defined by

$$C\frac{\overline{P}\gamma ^2}{\rho \overline{v}^2},$$
(8)
is denoted as the tunnelling strength. Inserting equation (7) into the integral in equation (3), leads to $`\kappa _{Debye}(T)`$ being proportional to $`T^2`$ for a dominating scattering of this type.

In order to obtain an optimal fit to the low-temperature thermal conductivity data of *i*-AlPdMn, the authors of Ref.  had to assume that the total scattering rate is the sum of two contributions, namely one according to equation (7), and a second contribution that leads to a linear $`T`$ dependence of $`\kappa _{Debye}(T)`$. The latter term may be caused by the scattering of phonons at stacking faults, with a scattering rate that is given by

$$\tau _{sf}^1=\frac{7}{10}\frac{a^2}{\overline{v}}\mathrm{\Gamma }^2\omega ^2N_s,$$
(9)
where $`a`$ is a lattice constant, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ the Grüneisen parameter and $`N_s`$ the linear density of stacking faults. We thus assume that the scattering process that is represented by equation (9) also needs to be considered in the analysis of our data.

Theoretical calculations of the vibrational excitation spectrum of a one-dimensional quasicrystal, i.e., a Fibbonacci chain , revealed a dense distribution of energy gaps. Although not proven rigorously, the same characteristic feature is expected for three-dimensional quasilattices. Together with the lack of well defined reciprocal lattice in quasicrystals, this leads to a power-law dependence of the generalized umklapp (*quasiumklapp*) scattering rate

$$\tau _{qu}^1\omega ^2T^4.$$
(10)
In order to establish the dominant scattering processes, we attempted to fit the data of $`\kappa _{qlatt}(T)`$ using equation (3), considering all physically reasonable combinations of scattering rates, given by equations (6), (7), (9) and (10). According to the arguments concerning the applicability of equation (3) below 50 K, the fitting procedure was applied for temperatures below 40 K. The best fit was obtained with the assumption that the total relaxation rate $`\tau ^1`$ is given by the sum of three of the above cited scattering rates

$$\tau ^1=\tau _{Cas}^1+\tau _{sf}^1+\tau _{qu}^1,$$
(11)
ignoring tunnelling states as relevant scattering centres. The term $`\tau _{qu}^1`$ represents a modified quasiumklapp scattering rate. The use of the quasiumklapp scattering rate (10) proposed by Kalugin et al.  did not give a satisfactory fit-curve in our case. This motivated us to test several power-law forms for the quasiumklapp scattering rate ($`\omega ^2T^2`$, $`\omega T^3`$, $`\omega ^3T`$). The form $`\tau _{qu}^1\omega ^2T^2`$ gives the best matching between the fit and the measured curves of $`\kappa _{qlatt}(T)`$. Other forms of $`\tau _{qu}^1`$ were chosen by other authors, including $`\tau _{qu}^1\omega ^3T`$, which was used in reference  for the analysis of the thermal conductivity of *i*-ZnMgY. The scattering rates of $`\tau _{qu}^1\omega ^2T^2`$ and $`\tau _{qu}^1\omega ^3T`$ lead to a $`T^1`$-temperature dependence of the quasilattice thermal conductivity, while the scattering rate given by equation (10) gives $`\kappa _{qlatt}(T)T^3`$. Deviations from the $`T^3`$-law are also observed in quasicrystalline approximant phases . Several reasons might cause the deviation from the $`T^3`$-temperature dependence of the quasilattice thermal conductivity. First, at temperatures of few a tens of Kelvins there is the possibility of hopping excitations of localized quasilattice vibrations, whose activation energies is of the order of 1 meV. Second, IXS experiments  revealed the existence of low-lying vibrational states in *i*-AlPdMn phases. Their excitation also may mask the temperature dependence of $`\kappa _{qlatt}`$ that is consistent with $`\tau _{qu}^1`$ as given by equation (10).

Fitting equation (3) to the data of $`\kappa _{qlatt}(T)`$ allows for an evaluation of the mean free path $`l`$, and the stacking-fault density $`N_S`$. According to equation (6) and $`\overline{v}=4004`$ m/s, the fitting procedure gave the value of 0.8 mm for the phonon mean free path $`l`$ at low temperatures. To calculate $`N_S`$, the values of the ’lattice’ constant $`a`$ and the Grüneisen parameter $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ are needed. In non-periodic structures, such as quasicrystals, the definition of a ’lattice’ constant needs some explanation. The structure model of quasicrystals assumes that their structures are a low-dimensional projection of a structure that is periodic in a higher dimensional space. For example, icosahedral quasicrystals are obtained by the projection of a 6-D cubic lattice onto a 3-D space. Elser  defined the ’lattice’ constant $`a`$ of icosahedral quasicrystals as the extension of the projection of the six-dimensional cube edge on the 3-D space, multiplied by the golden mean $`\tau `$ ($`\tau =(\sqrt{5}+1)/2`$). The value of $`a`$ for *i*-AlPdMn calculated in this way is 7.4 Å. The Grüneisen parameter can also be calculated from the data of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$’s of the constituent elements , with the atomic composition fixing the weight factors. The relevant Grüneisen parameter calculated in this way is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.1`$. The experimental determination of the Grüneisen parameter of the *i*-AlPdMn family showed that above 50 K it adopts a constant value of around 1.8 . Low-temperature data of Swenson and co-workers  suggest an increase of the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-value up to 8 at temperatures of the order of 1 K. Because of this uncertainty only an order of magnitude estimate of $`N_S`$ can be made. The stacking fault density $`N_S`$ lies between 0.1 and 1 $`\mu `$m-1.

The sum $`\kappa _{Debye}(T)+\kappa _{el}(T)`$, where $`\kappa _{Debye}(T)`$ is the fit of $`\kappa _{qlatt}(T)`$ to equation (3) obtained for $`0.4`$ K$`<T<40`$ K and $`\kappa _{el}(T)=\kappa _{el}^{WF}(T)`$, is shown as a solid line on Figure 1 It may be seen that the calculated curve reproduces the measured data very well below $`50`$ K. Above 50 K the experimental data deviate from the sum $`\kappa _{Debye}(T)+\kappa _{el}(T)`$. The thermal activation of localized vibrational modes opens a channel for the heat transfer by hopping excitations, which generally can be described by an activation law

$$\kappa _{hop}(T)=\kappa _{hop}^0\mathrm{exp}(E_a/k_BT),$$
(12)
where $`E_a`$ is the mean activation energy, and $`\kappa _{hop}^0`$ is a hopping-type thermal conductivity of the system at infinite temperature. The difference between the experimental data $`\kappa (T)`$ and the sum $`\kappa _{Debye}(T)+\kappa _{el}(T)`$ was attributed to the hopping-type heat-conduction channel and was fitted to Eq. (12). The fit gave $`E_a=29`$ meV and $`\kappa _{hop}^0=8.0`$ W/mK. The curve of the total thermal conductivity

$$\kappa _{tot}(T)=\kappa _{Debye}(T)+\kappa _{el}(T)+\kappa _{hop}(T),$$
(13)
and the individual curves of $`\kappa _{Debye}(T)`$, $`\kappa _{el}(T)=\kappa _{el}^{WF}(T)`$, and $`\kappa _{hop}(T)`$ are presented in the Figure 2 as the solid, solid grey, dashed, and dotted-dashed lines, respectively. It is obvious that $`\kappa _{tot}(T)`$ reproduces the measured thermal conductivity $`\kappa (T)`$ remarkably well at all covered temperatures.

The fit of $`\kappa _{qlatt}(T)`$ to $`\kappa _{Debye}(T)`$ (equation (3)) for $`0.4`$ K $`<T<40`$ K leads to the conclusion that tunnelling states are not a relevant source of phonon scattering. The same was concluded for *i*-MgZnY in Ref. , where the same type of the thermal-conductivity analysis was used below 50 K. Other authors, who observed that tunnelling states do take part in the phonon scattering , made their Debye-type analysis of $`\kappa (T)`$ below 1 K. Existing experimental data besides thermal conductivity, i.e. results of acoustic experiments, show that tunnelling-state defects are intrinsic constituents of the quasicrystal structure. Thus, we face a discrepancy between fits of quasicrystal thermal conductivity data for $`0.4`$ K $`<T<40`$ K and other claims in the existing literature. In view of this situation, we also attempted to fit our quasilattice thermal conductivity data $`\kappa _{qlatt}(T)`$ to equation (3) in the temperature interval between 0.4 K (the lowest temperature reached in the experiment) and 1 K. The best fit is obtained by the following choice of phonon scattering rates

$$\tau ^1=\tau _{Cas}^1+\tau _{sf}^1+\tau _{ts}^1.$$
(14)
The fit is presented as a solid line in the inset of Figure 1. The fit parameters are $`l=1`$ mm, and the order of magnitude of $`N_S`$ ranges between 1 and 10 $`\mu `$m-1. Note that the uncertainty is due to the approximate evaluation of the Grüneisen parameter $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. The parameter $`C`$ is $`0.2\times 10^4`$. Existing experimental data on the tunnelling strength for the *i*-AlPdMn quasicrystal family were collected not only by using thermal conductivity data, but also results of acoustic-attenuation and sound-velocity experiments were invoked , and the resulting values of $`C`$ range between $`0.3\times 10^4`$ and $`3\times 10^4`$.

We note two kinds of discrepancies between fits of $`\kappa _{qlatt}(T)`$ to $`\kappa _{Debye}(T)`$ for the temperature ranges $`0.4`$ K $`<T<40`$ K and $`0.4`$ K $`<T<1`$ K. The first one is related to the importance of tunnelling-states scattering which seems to depend on the chosen temperature range of data fitting. It might also be the case that the Debye-type model of the thermal conductivity is really valid only at very low temperatures. The second discrepancy between $`0.4`$ K $`<T<40`$ K-fit and $`0.4`$ K $`<T<1`$ K-fit concerns the value of $`N_S`$, which ranges between 0.1 and 1 $`\mu `$m-1 for the first fit range and 1 and 10 $`\mu `$m-1 for the second. A clarification is offered by the results of the TEM experiment, which provides information on the presence and the density of stacking faults in the sample. A TEM photograph of the investigated sample is shown in Figure 3, where some of the stacking-fault contrasts are indicated by white arrows. The order of magnitude of the linear stacking-fault density $`N_S`$ can be estimated from Figure 3 and lies between 1 and 10 $`\mu `$m-1. This supports the results of the thermal conductivity analysis obtained for the temperature range $`0.4`$ K $`<T<1`$ K, indicating that the Debye-type analysis of $`\kappa (T)`$ for quasicrystals is more appropriate at very low temperatures.

## 4 Conclusion

In this work, we investigated the thermal conductivity of an icosahedral quasicrystal *i*-Al72Pd19.5Mn8.5 in the temperature range between 0.4 K and 300 K. The objective was to study the influence of tunnelling states on the phonon scattering affecting the low-temperature thermal conductivity, because some thermal conductivity data available in the literature do not corroborate the general claim of tunnelling states as a characteristic of a quasicrystal structure.

Fits to our thermal conductivity results were made using a Debye-type analysis in two temperature regions: $`0.4`$ K $`<T<40`$ K and $`0.4`$ K $`<T<1`$ K. The resulting fits are sensitive to the chosen temperature regime: for $`0.4`$ K $`<T<40`$ K the best fit suggests that tunnelling states are not significantly affecting the scattering of phonons, contrary to the majority of similar work available in the literature. The fit to the data in region between 0.4 K and 1 K, however indicates the relevance of tunneling states as phonon scattering centres. Besides the question of the existence of tunnelling states, the same fit confirms the importance of scattering centers in the form of stacking faults, which are actually observed in transmission electron microscopy experiments.

A.B. acknowledges financial support from the Swiss Federal Commission for Foreign Students. The authors thank I.R. Fisher and P.C. Canfield for supplying the sample, and E. Tutiš for fruitful discussions. The work was in part finacially supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sport.


text:
# IFT - 19/2003hep-ph/0307183July 2003 Light Higgs-boson production at the Photon Collider at TESLA with an improved background analysis

## 1 Introduction

A search of the Higgs boson is among the most important tasks for the present and future colliders. Once the Higgs boson is discovered, it will be crucial to determine its properties with a high accuracy. A photon-collider option of the TESLA collider  offers a unique possibility to produce the Higgs boson as an $`s`$-channel resonance. The neutral Higgs boson couples to the photons through a loop with the massive charged particles. This loop-induced $`h\gamma \gamma `$ coupling is sensitive to contributions of new particles which appear in various extensions of the SM.

The SM Higgs boson with a mass below $`140`$ GeV is expected to decay predominantly into the $`b\overline{b}`$ final state. Here we consider the process $`\gamma \gamma hb\overline{b}`$ for a Higgs-boson mass $`M_h=`$ 120, 130, 140, 150 and 160 GeV at the Photon Collider at TESLA. Both the signal and background events are generated according to a realistic photon–photon luminosity spectrum , parametrized by a CompAZ model . For the first time in such study overlaying events $`\gamma \gamma `$ hadrons are taken into account, for which we use photon–photon luminosity spectra from a full simulation . Our analysis incorporates a simulation of the detector response according to the program SIMDET  and – the next new element – a realistic $`b`$-tagging . This analysis supersedes our earlier analyses presented in .

## 2 Photon–photon luminosity spectra

The Compton back-scattering of a laser light off high-energy electron beams is considered as a source of high energy, highly polarized photon beams . According to the current design , the energy of the laser photons is assumed to be fixed for all considered electron-beam energies; laser photons are assumed to have circular polarization $`P_c=`$ 100%, electrons longitudinal polarization is $`P_e=`$ 85%. We use the luminosity spectrum peaked at high energy and assume that the energy of primary electrons is adjusted in order to enhance the signal at a particular mass.

In a generation of the processes $`\gamma \gamma `$ hadrons one has to take into account also the low energy events, since they contribute to overlaying events . To simulate them we use the realistic $`\gamma \gamma `$ luminosity-spectra for the photon collider at TESLA , with the non-linear corrections and higher order QED processes. For generation of the processes $`\gamma \gamma hb\overline{b}`$ and $`\gamma \gamma b\overline{b}(g),c\overline{c}(g)`$ we use the CompAZ parametrization  of the spectrum .

The results presented in this paper were obtained for an integrated luminosity corresponding to one year of the Photon Collider running, as given by . For example, for $`\sqrt{s_{ee}}=`$ 210.5 GeV, which is optimal for $`M_h=`$ 120 GeV, the total photon–photon luminosity per year is $`L_{\gamma \gamma }=410`$ fb-1 (84 fb-1 for $`W_{\gamma \gamma }>80`$ GeV). The total photon-photon luminosity increases to about 490 fb-1 for $`\sqrt{s_{ee}}=`$ 260 GeV (used for $`M_h=`$ 160 GeV).

## 3 Details of a simulation
and the first results for $`M_h=`$ 120 GeV

We calculated the total width and branching ratios of the SM Higgs boson, using the program HDECAY , where higher order QCD corrections are included. A generation of events was done with the PYTHIA 6.214 program . A parton shower algorithm, implemented in PYTHIA, was used to generate the final-state particles.

The background events due to processes $`\gamma \gamma b\overline{b}(g),c\overline{c}(g)`$ were generated using the program written by G. Jikia , where a complete NLO QCD calculation for the production of massive quarks is performed within the massive-quark scheme. The program includes exact one-loop QCD corrections to the lowest order (LO) process $`\gamma \gamma b\overline{b},c\overline{c}`$ , and in addition the non-Sudakov form factor in the double-logarithmic approximation, calculated up to four loops .

For an estimation of systematic uncertainties in $`b`$-tagging simulation we also generated the background events, using the LO QED cross section for the processes $`\gamma \gamma b\overline{b}`$ and $`\gamma \gamma c\overline{c}`$, and including parton shower, as implemented in PYTHIA.

The fragmentation into hadrons for all processes was performed using the PYTHIA program.

Because of the large cross section, about one $`\gamma \gamma `$ hadrons event111We consider only photon–photon events with $`W_{\gamma \gamma }>4`$ GeV. is expected per bunch crossing at TESLA Photon Collider (for $`\sqrt{s_{ee}}=`$ 210-260 GeV, with nominal luminosity). We generate these events according to PYTHIA 6.214, including direct and hadron-like photon contributions. We use the full simulation of photon–photon spectra , rescaled to the chosen beam energy. For each considered collision energy, $`\sqrt{s_{ee}}`$, average number of $`\gamma \gamma `$ hadrons events per bunch crossing is calculated. Next, for each signal $`\gamma \gamma hb\overline{b}`$ or background $`\gamma \gamma b\overline{b}(g),c\overline{c}(g)`$ event $`\gamma \gamma `$ hadrons events are overlaid (added to the event record) according to the Poisson distribution.

Processes contributing to the overlaying events have forward-peaked distributions, as is shown in Fig. 1 for $`\sqrt{s_{ee}}=`$ 210.5 GeV. Therefore, to minimize an influence of these events on the signal measurement we ignore tracks and clusters with $`|\mathrm{cos}(\theta _i)|>\mathrm{cos}(\theta _{min})=0.9`$ ($`\theta _{min}=450`$ mrad; where the angle between the beam axis and a track/cluster, $`\theta _i`$, is measured in the laboratory frame). Hadron-level studies performed with PYTHIA show that after this cut overlaying events contribute to the measured invariant mass below 5% in 90% of signal events. Below we use the $`\theta _{min}`$ cut only when overlaying events are included in the analysis.

The fast simulation program SIMDET version 4.01  was used to model a TESLA detector performance.

Jets were reconstructed using the Durham algorithm, with $`y_{cut}=0.02`$; the distance measure was defined as $`y_{ij}=2\mathrm{min}(E_i^2,E_j^2)(1\mathrm{cos}\theta _{ij})/E_{vis}^2`$, where $`E_{vis}`$ is the total energy measured in the detector.

The following cuts were used to select the $`hb\overline{b}`$ events:

1. since the Higgs bosons are expected to be produced almost at rest, we require that the ratio of the total longitudinal momentum of all observed particles to the total visible energy is $`|P_z|/E_{vis}<0.15`$,
2. we select two- and three-jet events, $`N_{jets}=2,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}`$, so that events with one additional jet due to a hard-gluon emission are also accepted,
3. for each jet we require $`|\mathrm{cos}\theta _i|<0.75`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},N_{jets}`$.

We use “ZVTOP-B-Hadron-Tagger” package for the TESLA collider  for realistic $`b`$-tagging simulation. The package is based on the neural-network algorithm trained on the $`Z`$ decays. For each jet it returns a “$`b`$-tag” value – the number between 0 and 1 corresponding to “$`b`$-jet” likelihood. At $`\sqrt{s_{ee}}=`$ 210.5 GeV, the signal to the background ratio, $`N(\gamma \gamma b\overline{b}(g))/N(\gamma \gamma c\overline{c}(g))`$, for selected 2-jet events, after additional cut $`E_{vis}>85`$ GeV, was investigated as a function of two $`b`$-tag values, with and without overlaying events.

By accepting $`\gamma \gamma b\overline{b}(g),c\overline{c}(g)`$ events above a given signal-to-background ratio, the $`b\overline{b}`$-tagging efficiency $`\epsilon _{bb}`$ was studied as a function of $`c\overline{c}`$-mistagging probability $`\epsilon _{cc}`$, as shown in Fig. 2. For 3-jet events three possible pairs of jets were considered and the event was accepted if at least one pair gives the signal-to-background ratio above the cut. It was found that the cut corresponding to the efficiencies $`\epsilon _{bb}=80\%`$ and $`\epsilon _{cc}=2.2\%`$ is optimal for the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(h\gamma \gamma )\mathrm{Br}(hb\overline{b})`$ measurement. For other considered electron-beam energies similar efficiencies were obtained (not shown). In the earlier analyses  a fixed efficiency for the $`b\overline{b}`$-tagging, $`\epsilon _{bb}=70\%`$, and a fixed probability for a mistagging of the $`c\overline{c}`$ events, $`\epsilon _{cc}=3.5\%`$, were assumed (indicated in Fig. 2).

In order to estimate possible influence of neglecting soft-gluon emissions in simulation of a NLO background, for which parton shower algorithm is not used, the efficiency of $`b\overline{b}`$-tagging was compared with an efficiency for the LO background simulation with PYTHIA (including parton shower) . The overlaying events were not included in this investigation. Results of this analysis do not indicate any significant influence on the $`b`$-tagging. We obtain efficiencies of $`\epsilon _{bb}=82.2\%(82.4\%)`$ and $`\epsilon _{cc}=2.2\%(2.3\%)`$, for background events generated according to NLO cross-sections without parton shower (LO cross-sections with parton shower).

In Fig. 3 we show influence of a $`b`$-tagging on reconstructed invariant-mass distribution, $`W_{rec}`$, for the signal events $`\gamma \gamma hb\overline{b}`$. These results were obtained without overlaying events $`\gamma \gamma `$ hadrons. The low mass tail is due to the presence of events with escaping neutrinos (see  for more details). Contribution of these events can be suppressed by an additional cut $`P_T/E_T<0.04`$, where $`P_T`$ and $`E_T`$ are the absolute values of the total transverse momentum of an event, $`\stackrel{}{P}_T`$, and the total transverse energy, respectively. We see that $`b`$-tagging does not influence significantly the shape of the distributions.

In Fig. 4 we compare the invariant-mass distributions before and after taking into account the overlaying events. A mass resolution, derived from the Gaussian fit in the region from $`\mu \sigma `$ to $`\mu +2\sigma `$, is 3.5 and 6.1 GeV, respectively. Despite a quite high $`\theta _{min}`$ cut, the overlaying events result in a bigger tail above $`W_{rec}=120`$ GeV. A small drop in a selection efficiency, resulting in the reduced number of events (from about 8520 to 7740 events), is observed. This is because the energy deposits from the $`\gamma \gamma `$ hadrons processes, remaining after the $`\theta _{min}`$ cut, “shift” jets nearer to the beam axis and the event can be rejected by the jet-angle cut. Moreover, the additional deposits and $`\theta _{min}`$-cut deform jets, what slightly reduces the selection efficiency. To study this issue in details we plan to simulate in the future the signal events with various $`\theta _{min}`$ values.

After applying the selection cuts, $`b`$-tagging and rejecting low-angle deposits we obtain the distributions of the reconstructed $`\gamma \gamma `$ invariant mass, $`W_{rec}`$, shown in Fig. 5. The signal and NLO background contributions, $`b\overline{b}(g)`$ and $`c\overline{c}(g)`$, are shown separately.

Assuming that the signal for Higgs-boson production will be extracted by counting the number of $`b\overline{b}`$ events in the mass window around the peak, $`N_{obs}`$, and subtracting the expected background events, $`N_{bkgd}`$, we can calculate the expected relative statistical error for the cross section $`\sigma (\gamma \gamma hb\overline{b})`$ (or the partial width multiplied by the branching ratio $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(h\gamma \gamma )\mathrm{Br}(hb\overline{b})`$) in the following way:

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma (\gamma \gamma hb\overline{b})}{\sigma (\gamma \gamma hb\overline{b})}=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\left[\mathrm{\Gamma }(h\gamma \gamma )\mathrm{Br}(hb\overline{b})\right]}{\left[\mathrm{\Gamma }(h\gamma \gamma )\mathrm{Br}(hb\overline{b})\right]}=\frac{\sqrt{N_{obs}}}{N_{obs}N_{bkgd}}.$$

The accuracy expected for the Higgs-boson mass of 120 GeV, from the reconstructed invariant-mass distribution in the selected mass range between 102.5 and 142.5 GeV (see Fig. 5), is equal to 2.0%. It is in agreement with the results of a previous analysis . Note however, that in the present analysis a loss of signal efficiency due to the overlaying events is compensated by a more effective $`b`$-tagging.

## 4 Final results for masses 120–160 GeV

As in , to correct for escaping neutrinos we use the corrected invariant mass, a variable defined as:

$$W_{corr}\sqrt{W_{rec}^2+2P_T(E_{vis}+P_T)}$$
(1)
In Fig. 6 the distributions of $`W_{corr}`$ for the selected signal events, without and with overlaying events, are presented. The tail of events with invariant masses below $`110`$ GeV is much smaller than for the $`W_{rec}`$-distributions (compare with Fig. 4). The mass resolutions, derived from the Gaussian fits to the $`W_{corr}`$-distributions in the region from $`\mu 2\sigma `$ to $`\mu +\sigma `$, are equal to 3.5 and 5.0 GeV, without and with overlaying events, respectively.

The distributions of the $`W_{corr}`$, obtained for the signal and background events, with overlaying events included, are shown in Fig. 7. The most precise measurement of the Higgs-boson cross section is obtained for the mass window $`W_{corr}`$ between 110 and 150 GeV, as indicated by arrows. In the selected $`W_{corr}`$ region one expects, after one year of the Photon Collider running at nominal luminosity, about 6900 reconstructed signal events and 8800 background events (i.e. $`S/B0.8`$). This corresponds to the statistical precision of:

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\left[\mathrm{\Gamma }(h\gamma \gamma )\mathrm{Br}(hb\overline{b})\right]}{\left[\mathrm{\Gamma }(h\gamma \gamma )\mathrm{Br}(hb\overline{b})\right]}=1.8\%.$$

We have performed a full simulation of signal and background events also for $`M_h=`$ 130, 140, 150 and 160 GeV choosing optimal $`e^{}e^{}`$ beam energies for each Higgs-boson mass. Statistical precision of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(h\gamma \gamma )\mathrm{Br}(hb\overline{b})`$ measurement was estimated in each case. It is equal to 1.8%, 2.1%, 3.0% and 7.1%, respectively. These results, together with described above result for $`M_h=`$ 120 GeV, are presented in Fig. 8. For comparison our earlier results , obtained without overlaying events, are also shown.

## 5 Conclusions

We performed a realistic simulation of SM Higgs-boson production in the Photon Collider at TESLA, $`\gamma \gamma hb\overline{b}`$, with the NLO background, corrections for escaping neutrinos and – for the first time – with the realistic $`b`$-tagging and overlaying events. Our analysis shows that for $`M_h=`$ 120-160 GeV the two-photon width of SM Higgs boson can be measured with a statistical precision 1.8-7.1%.

The obtained accuracies are in a rough agreement with the results of a previous analysis, based on the idealistic Compton spectrum . As shown in , the realistic photon–photon luminosity spectrum is more challenging for a precise determination of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(h\gamma \gamma )\mathrm{Br}(hb\overline{b})`$. The precision of the measurement has been improved after applying a correction for escaping neutrinos and a mass-window cut. In the present analysis we include overlaying events and, as expected, the measurement precision decreases. However, a realistic $`b`$-tagging used here, resulting in a better $`b\overline{b}`$-tagging efficiency than estimated earlier, allows to counterbalance this effect.

The measurement discussed in this paper can be used to derive the partial width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(h\gamma \gamma )`$ . For example, for a Higgs boson of $`M_h=`$ 120 GeV we estimate a precision 1.8% on the measurement of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(h\gamma \gamma )\mathrm{Br}(hb\overline{b})`$. Assuming that $`\mathrm{Br}(hb\overline{b})`$ will be measured at the $`e^+e^{}`$ Linear Collider with a precision 1.5% , the partial width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(h\gamma \gamma )`$ can be extracted with an accuracy of 2.3%. Using in addition the result from the $`e^+e^{}`$ Linear Collider for $`\mathrm{Br}(h\gamma \gamma )`$ , one can also extract $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{tot}}`$ with a precision of 10%.

For higher masses of the SM Higgs boson other decay channels should be considered, see e.g. .

### Acknowledgments

We would like to thank A. De Roeck, K. Mönig and T. Kuhl for valuable discussions. M.K. acknowledges partial support by the Polish Committee for Scientific Research, Grants 2 P03B 05119 (2003), 5 P03B 12120 (2003), and by the European Community’s Human Potential Programme under contract HPRN-CT-2000-00149 Physics at Colliders.