Electron Neutrino Flux Research Articles

Imprints of vector field non-standard couplings on solar neutrino flux

Regarding the proximity of dark energy scale and neutrino mass, one can get new insight into the probe signatures of vector field dark energy component on neutrino flavor conversion. A vector field is assumed to be conformally coupled to various matter components through a screening paradigm. We show how the oscillation probabilities evolve differently with a finite-size matter density like the Sun for different values of relevant model parameters. Considering existing neutrino flavor conversion data, we point out how this non-standard coupling affects neutrino fluxes, and also, we compute the discrepancy in the total flux of solar electron-neutrinos.

ENUBET: A monitored neutrino beam for high precision cross section measurements

The main source of systematic uncertainty on neutrino cross section measurements at the GeV scale is represented by the poor knowledge of the initial flux. The goal of cutting down this uncertainty to 1% can be achieved through the monitoring of charged leptons produced in association with neutrinos, by properly instrumenting the decay region of a conventional narrow-band neutrino beam. Large angle muons and positrons from kaons are measured by a sampling calorimeter on the decay tunnel walls (tagger), while muon stations after the hadron dump can be used to monitor the neutrino component from pion decays. This instrumentation can provide a full control on both the muon and electron neutrino fluxes at all energies. Furthermore, the narrow momentum width (<10%) of the beam provides a O(10%) measurement of the neutrino energy on an event by event basis, thanks to its correlation with the radial position of the interaction at the neutrino detector. The ENUBET project has been funded by the ERC in 2016 to prove the feasibility of such a monitored neutrino beam and is cast in the framework of the CERN neutrino platform (NP06) and the Physics Beyond Colliders initiative. In our contribution, we summarize the ENUBET design, physics performance and opportunities for its implementation in a timescale comparable with next long baseline neutrino experiments.

MiniBooNE and MicroBooNE Combined Fit to a 3+1 Sterile Neutrino Scenario.

This Letter presents the results from the MiniBooNE experiment within a full "3+1" scenario where one sterile neutrino is introduced to the three-active-neutrino picture. In addition to electron-neutrino appearance at short baselines, this scenario also allows for disappearance of the muon-neutrino and electron-neutrino fluxes in the Booster Neutrino Beam, which is shared by the MicroBooNE experiment. We present the 3+1 fit to the MiniBooNE electron-(anti)neutrino and muon-(anti)neutrino data alone and in combination with MicroBooNE electron-neutrino data. The best-fit parameters of the combined fit with the exclusive charged-current quasielastic analysis (inclusive analysis) are Δm^{2}=0.209 eV^{2}(0.033 eV^{2}), |U_{e4}|^{2}=0.016(0.500), |U_{μ4}|^{2}=0.500(0.500), and sin^{2}(2θ_{μe})=0.0316(1.0). Comparing the no-oscillation scenario to the 3+1 model, the data prefer the 3+1 model with a Δχ^{2}/d.o.f.=24.7/3(17.3/3), a 4.3σ(3.4σ) preference assuming the asymptotic approximation given by Wilks's theorem.

Absolute ν Mass Measurement with the DUNE Experiment.

Time of flight delay in the supernova neutrino signal offers a unique tool to set model-independent constraints on the absolute neutrino mass. The presence of a sharp time structure during a first emission phase, the so-called neutronization burst in the electron neutrino flavor time distribution, makes this channel a very powerful one. Large liquid argon underground detectors will provide precision measurements of the time dependence of the electron neutrino fluxes. We derive here a new ν mass sensitivity attainable at the future DUNE far detector from a future supernova collapse in our galactic neighborhood, finding a sub-eV reach under favorable scenarios. These values are competitive with those expected for laboratory direct neutrino mass searches.

Constraining dark matter-nucleon scattering cross section by the background electron anti-neutrino flux data

Celestial objects such as stars and planets might be able to capture a large amount of dark matter particles through dark matter-nucleon scattering. Many previous studies have considered different celestial objects such as the Sun and the Earth as natural dark matter detectors and obtained some stringent bounds of the dark matter-nucleon scattering cross section. In this study, we use the ∼10 MeV electron neutrino flux limits obtained by the Super-Kamiokande experiment and consider the Earth as a large natural dark matter detector to constrain the dark matter-nucleon scattering cross section. We show that this method can generally get more stringent limits. For certain ranges of dark matter mass annihilating via the bb¯ channel, the limits of cross section for the isospin-independent scattering and proton-only scattering could be more stringent than that obtained in the PICO direct-detection experiment.

Damped neutrino oscillations in a conformal coupling model

Flavor transitions of Neutrinos with a nonstandard interaction are studied. A scalar field is conformally coupled to matter and neutrinos. This interaction alters the neutrino effective mass and its wavefunction leading to a damping factor, causing deficits in the probability densities and affecting the oscillation phase. As the matter density determines the scalar field's behavior, we also have an indirect matter density effect on the flavor conversion. We explain our results in the context of screening models and study the deficit in the total flux of electron-neutrinos produced in the Sun through the decay process and confront our results with observational data.

Measurement of the atmospheric νe and νμ energy spectra with the ANTARES neutrino telescope

This letter presents a combined measurement of the energy spectra of atmospheric νe and νμ in the energy range between ∼100 GeV and ∼50 TeV with the ANTARES neutrino telescope. The analysis uses 3012 days of detector livetime in the period 2007–2017, and selects 1016 neutrinos interacting in (or close to) the instrumented volume of the detector, yielding shower-like events (mainly from νe+ν‾e charged current plus all neutrino neutral current interactions) and starting track events (mainly from νμ+ν‾μ charged current interactions). The contamination by atmospheric muons in the final sample is suppressed at the level of a few per mill by different steps in the selection analysis, including a Boosted Decision Tree classifier. The distribution of reconstructed events is unfolded in terms of electron and muon neutrino fluxes. The derived energy spectra are compared with previous measurements that, above 100 GeV, are limited to experiments in polar ice and, for νμ, to Super-Kamiokande.

Sensitivity of future liquid argon dark matter search experiments to core-collapse supernova neutrinos

Future liquid-argon DarkSide-20k and Argo detectors, designed for direct dark matter search, will be sensitive also to core-collapse supernova neutrinos, via coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering. This interaction channel is flavor-insensitive with a high-cross section, enabling for a high-statistics neutrino detection with target masses of ∼50 t and ∼360 t for DarkSide-20k and Argo respectively.Thanks to the low-energy threshold of ∼0.5 keVnr achievable by exploiting the ionization channel, DarkSide-20k and Argo have the potential to discover supernova bursts throughout our galaxy and up to the Small Magellanic Cloud, respectively, assuming a 11-M☉ progenitor star. We report also on the sensitivity to the neutronization burst, whose electron neutrino flux is suppressed by oscillations when detected via charged current and elastic scattering. Finally, the accuracies in the reconstruction of the average and total neutrino energy in the different phases of the supernova burst, as well as its time profile, are also discussed, taking into account the expected background and the detector response.

Characteristics of the Diffuse Astrophysical Electron and Tau Neutrino Flux with Six Years of IceCube High Energy Cascade Data.

We report on the first measurement of the astrophysical neutrino flux using particle showers (cascades) in IceCube data from 2010-2015. Assuming standard oscillations, the astrophysical neutrinos in this dedicated cascade sample are dominated (∼90%) by electron and tau flavors. The flux, observed in the sensitive energy range from 16TeV to 2.6PeV, is consistent with a single power-law model as expected from Fermi-type acceleration of high energy particles at astrophysical sources. We find the flux spectral index to be γ=2.53±0.07 and a flux normalization for each neutrino flavor of ϕ_{astro}=1.66_{-0.27}^{+0.25} at E_{0}=100 TeV, in agreement with IceCube's complementary muon neutrino results and with all-neutrino flavor fit results. In the measured energy range we reject spectral indices γ≤2.28 at ≥3σ significance level. Because of high neutrino energy resolution and low atmospheric neutrino backgrounds, this analysis provides the most detailed characterization of the neutrino flux at energies below ∼100 TeV compared to previous IceCube results. Results from fits assuming more complex neutrino flux models suggest a flux softening at high energies and a flux hardening at low energies (p value ≥0.06). The sizable and smooth flux measured below ∼100 TeV remains a puzzle. In order to not violate the isotropic diffuse gamma-ray background as measured by the Fermi Large Area Telescope, it suggests the existence of astrophysical neutrino sources characterized by dense environments which are opaque to gamma rays.

The MicroBooNE continuous readout stream for detection of supernova neutrinos

Since the original detection of core-collapse supernova neutrinos in 1987, all large neutrino experiments seek to detect the neutrinos from the next nearby supernova. Among them, liquid argon time projection chambers (LArTPCs) offer a unique sensitivity to the electron neutrino flux of a supernova. However, the low energy of these events (scale of MeVs), and the fact that all large (multi-tonne) LArTPCs operating at the moment are located near the Earth’s surface, and are therefore subject to an intense cosmic ray flux, makes triggering on the supernova neutrinos very challenging. Instead, MicroBooNE has pioneered a novel approach for detecting supernova neutrinos based on a continuous readout stream and a delayed trigger generated by other neutrino detectors (the Supernova Early Warning System, or SNEWS). MicroBooNE’s data is stored temporarily for a few days, awaiting a SNEWS alert to prompt the permanent recording of the data. In order to cope with the large data rates produced by the continuous readout of the TPC and the PMT systems of MicroBooNE, FPGA-based zero-suppression algorithms have been developed.

Effects of LESA in Three-dimensional Supernova Simulations with Multidimensional and Ray-by-ray-plus Neutrino Transport

Abstract A set of eight self-consistent, time-dependent supernova (SN) simulations in three spatial dimensions (3D) for 9 and 20 M ⊙ progenitors is evaluated for the presence of dipolar asymmetries of the electron lepton-number emission as discovered by Tamborra et al. and termed lepton-number emission self-sustained asymmetry (LESA). The simulations were performed with the Aenus–Alcar neutrino/hydrodynamics code, which treats the energy- and velocity-dependent transport of neutrinos of all flavors by a two-moment scheme with algebraic M1 closure. For each of the progenitors, results with fully multidimensional (FMD) neutrino transport and with ray-by-ray-plus (RbR+) approximation are considered for two different grid resolutions. While the 9 M ⊙ models develop explosions, the 20 M ⊙ progenitor does not explode with the employed version of simplified neutrino opacities. In all 3D models we observe the growth of substantial dipole amplitudes of the lepton-number (electron neutrino minus antineutrino) flux with stable or slowly time-evolving direction and overall properties fully consistent with the LESA phenomenon. Models with RbR+ transport develop LESA dipoles somewhat faster and with temporarily higher amplitudes, but the FMD calculations exhibit cleaner hemispheric asymmetries with a far more dominant dipole. In contrast, the RbR+ results display much wider multipole spectra of the neutrino emission anisotropies with significant power also in the quadrupole and higher-order modes. Our results disprove speculations that LESA is a numerical artifact of RbR+ transport. We also discuss LESA as a consequence of a dipolar convection flow inside of the nascent neutron star and establish, tentatively, a connection to Chandrasekhar’s linear theory of thermal instability in spherical shells.

The gallium anomaly revisited

The gallium anomaly, i.e. the missing electron-neutrino flux from 37Ar and 51Cr electron-capture decays as measured by the GALLEX and SAGE solar-neutrino detectors, has been among us already for about two decades. We present here a new estimate of the significance of this anomaly based on cross-section calculations using nuclear shell-model wave functions obtained by exploiting recently developed two-nucleon interactions. The gallium anomaly of the GALLEX and SAGE experiments is found to be smaller than that obtained in previous evaluations, decreasing the significance from 3.0σ to 2.3σ. This result is compatible with the recent indication in favor of short-baseline ν¯e disappearance due to small active-sterile neutrino mixing obtained from the combined analysis of the data of the NEOS and DANSS reactor experiments.

Iron as a Detector for Neutrinos from Collapsing Stars

The interaction of the flux of electron neutrinos arising owing to the effect of the rotationalcollapse mechanism at the first stage of supernova burst with LSD components, such as 56Fe (a large amount of this metal is contained in LSD as a shielding material) and С n H2n+2 liquid scintillator, is investigated. Both charged and neutral channels of neutrino interaction with 12С and 56Fe are considered. Experimental data that make it possible to extract information necessary for calculating nuclear matrix elements appearing in the expression for the interaction cross section are used. The number of signals generated in LSD by the neutrino pulse from the Supernova 1987A is determined. The results of this study are in good agreement with experimental data.

Non-standard interactions and neutrinos from dark matter annihilation in the Sun

We perform an analysis of the influence of non-standard neutrino interactions (NSI) on neutrino signal from dark matter annihilations in the Sun. Taking experimentally allowed benchmark values for the matter NSI parameters we show that the evolution of such neutrinos with energies at GeV scale can be considerably modified. We simulate propagation of neutrinos from the Sun to the Earth for realistic dark matter annihilation channels and find that the matter NSI can result in at most 30% correction to the signal rate of muon track events at neutrino telescopes. Still present experimental bounds on dark matter from these searches are robust in the presence of NSI within considerable part of their allowed parameter space. At the same time electron neutrino flux from dark matter annihilation in the Sun can be changed by a factor of few.

Calculation of atmospheric high-energy neutrino spectra and the measurement data of IceCube and ANTARES experiments

Presented are results of calculation of the atmospheric neutrino spectra in the energy range from 100 GeV to 10 PeV using the QGSJET-II and SIBYLL 2.1 models of hadron–nuclear interactions and two experimentally based Zatsepin–Sokol’skaya and Hillas–Gaisser models of the cosmic ray spectrum. It is shown that rare decays of short-lived neutral kaons produce about one third of the flux of electron neutrinos and up to 10% of muon neutrinos at energies above 100 TeV. The calculated spectra agree satisfactorily with the IceCube and ANTARES measurement data. The measurement errors leave open the possibility of a contribution from decays of charmed particles to fluxes of muon neutrinos with energies above 500 TeV and electron neutrinos with energies above 30 TeV.

The comparison of the calculated atmospheric neutrino spectra with the measurements of IceCube and ANTARES experiments

We calculate the atmospheric neutrino spectra in the energy range of 102 − 107 GeV using the hadronic models QGSJET-II, SIBYLL 2.1 and the parameterizations of cosmic ray spectra by Zatsepin-Sokolskaya, and Hillas-Gaisser supported by experiments. It is shown that rare decay mode of short-lived neutral kaons produce about 30% of the electron neutrino flux and up to 10% of muon neutrinos at energies above 200 TeV. Comparative analysis of our calculations based on the Ƶ(E, h)-function approach and those obtained with use of the new MCEq-method (A. Fedynitch et al.) demonstrates the close agreement of both calculations. The comparison of calculated neutrino spectrum to the experimental data shows that IceCube and ANTARES measurements leave opened window for the prompt neutrino flux contribution obtained with the quark-gluon string model (QGSM).

Influence of solar flares on behavior of solar neutrino flux

Limiting ourselves to two flavor approximation the motion of the neutrino flux in the solar matter and twisting magnetic field is considered. For the neutrino system described by the 4-component wave function ΨT=(νeL,νXL,ν¯eL,ν¯XL), where X=μ,τ, an evolution equation is found. Our consideration carries general character, that is, it holds for any SM extensions with massive neutrinos. The resonance transitions of the electron neutrinos are investigated. Factors which influence on the electron neutrino flux, crossing a region of solar flares (SF) are defined. When the SF is absent a terrestrial detector records the electron neutrino flux weakened at the cost both of vacuum oscillations and of the MSW resonance conversion only. On the other hand, the electron neutrino flux passed the SF region in preflare period proves to be further weakened in so far as it undergoes one (Majorana neutrino) or two (Dirac neutrino) additional resonance conversions, apart from the MSW resonance and vacuum oscillations.The hypothesis of the νe-induced decays which states that decreasing the beta decay rates of some elements of the periodic table is caused by reduction of the solar neutrino flux is discussed as well.

Charm contribution to the atmospheric neutrino flux

We revisit the estimate of the charm particle contribution to the atmospheric neutrino flux that is expected to dominate at high energies because long-lived high-energy pions and kaons interact in the atmosphere before decaying into neutrinos. We focus on the production of forward charm particles which carry a large fraction of the momentum of the incident proton. In the case of strange particles, such a component is familiar from the abundant production of $K^{+} \Lambda$ pairs. These forward charm particles can dominate the high-energy atmospheric neutrino flux in underground experiments. Modern collider experiments have no coverage in the very large rapidity region where charm forward pair production dominates. Using archival accelerator data as well as IceCube measurements of atmospheric electron and muon neutrino fluxes, we obtain an upper limit on forward $\bar{D}^0 \Lambda_c$ pair production and on the associated flux of high-energy atmospheric neutrinos. We conclude that the prompt flux may dominate the much-studied central component and represent a significant contribution to the TeV atmospheric neutrino flux. Importantly, it cannot accommodate the PeV flux of high-energy cosmic neutrinos, nor the excess of events observed by IceCube in the 30--200 TeV energy range indicating either structure in the flux of cosmic accelerators, or a presence of more than one component in the cosmic flux observed.

On the possible presence of neutral antileptons of all generations in the solar neutrino flux

The hypothesis that part of solar electron neutrino flux transforms into antineutrinos of the second and third generations and related antiparticles is considered. Complete electroweak spectra of recoil electrons, including impurity components, are obtained and analyzed for the scattering of beryllium monoenergetic solar neutrinos with energies of 0.862 MeV on an electron target.

Symmetric and standard matter neutrino resonances above merging compact objects

Matter-neutrino resonances (MNR) can occur in environments where the flux of electron antineutrinos is greater than the flux of electron neutrinos. These resonances may result in dramatic neutrino flavor transformation. Compact object merger disks are an example of an environment where electron antineutrinos outnumber neutrinos. We study MNR resonances in several such disk configurations and find two qualitatively different types of matter-neutrino resonances: a standard MNR and a symmetric MNR. We examine the transformation that occurs in each type of resonance and explore the consequences for nucleosynthesis.