Abstract
Cold, ultralight ($\ll$ eV) bosonic dark matter with a misalignment abundance can induce temporal variation in the masses and couplings of Standard Model particles. We find that fast variations in neutrino oscillation parameters can lead to significantly distorted neutrino oscillations (DiNOs) and yield striking signatures at long baseline experiments. We study several representative observables to demonstrate this effect and find that current and future experiments including DUNE and JUNO are sensitive to a wide range of viable scalar parameters over many decades in mass reach.
Highlights
Many popular extensions to the Standard Model (SM) feature ultralight bosonic fields with a present-day cosmic abundance
As the Universe expands, the energy density in these oscillations eventually redshifts like nonrelativistic matter and can account for the dark matter (DM) in our Universe
We study the opposite, highfrequency regime and find that scalars with τφ ≪ min distort neutrino oscillation probabilities even if this time variation cannot be resolved
Summary
Many popular extensions to the Standard Model (SM) feature ultralight bosonic fields with a present-day cosmic abundance. Even modest couplings to the new field, over a wide range of masses, can significantly modify neutrino oscillation probabilities leading to distorted neutrino oscillations (DiNOs). To illustrate this effect, consider an ultralight scalar φ with a Yukawa coupling to active neutrinos,. If the scalar oscillation period τφ ≡ 2π=mφ is longer than the characteristic neutrino time of flight Tν, but shorter than the total experimental run time, neutrinos emitted at different times will sample different values of φ over the course of a given experiment In this regime, the effective oscillation probability is the ensemble average. If the scalar primarily affects mass-squared differences (e.g., through flavor-blind Yukawa couplings), the time averaging has a more complicated functional dependence,.
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