Neutrino Oscillations Research Articles

Collective Neutrino Oscillations and Heavy-element Nucleosynthesis in Supernovae: Exploring Potential Effects of Many-body Neutrino Correlations

In high-energy astrophysical processes involving compact objects, such as core-collapse supernovae or binary neutron star mergers, neutrinos play an important role in the synthesis of nuclides. Neutrinos in these environments can experience collective flavor oscillations driven by neutrino–neutrino interactions, including coherent forward scattering and incoherent (collisional) effects. Recently, there has been interest in exploring potential novel behaviors in collective oscillations of neutrinos by going beyond the one-particle effective or “mean-field” treatments. Here, we seek to explore implications of collective neutrino oscillations, in the mean-field treatment and beyond, for the nucleosynthesis yields in supernova environments with different astrophysical conditions and neutrino inputs. We find that collective oscillations can impact the operation of the ν p-process and r-process nucleosynthesis in supernovae. The potential impact is particularly strong in high-entropy, proton-rich conditions, where we find that neutrino interactions can nudge an initial ν p-process neutron-rich, resulting in a unique combination of proton-rich low-mass nuclei as well as neutron-rich high-mass nuclei. We describe this neutrino-induced neutron-capture process as the “ν i-process.” In addition, nontrivial quantum correlations among neutrinos, if present significantly, could lead to different nuclide yields compared to the corresponding mean-field oscillation treatments, by virtue of modifying the evolution of the relevant one-body neutrino observables.

Leptoquark-mediated two-loop neutrino mass in unified theory

Scalar leptoquarks naturally arise within unified theories, offering a promising avenue for addressing one of the most significant challenges of the Standard Model–the existence of non-zero neutrino masses. In this work, we present a unified theory based on the SU(5) gauge group, where neutrino mass appears at the two-loop level via the propagation of scalar leptoquarks. Due to the unified framework, the charged fermion and neutrino masses and mixings are entangled and determined by a common set of Yukawa couplings. These exotic particles not only shed light on the neutrino mass generation mechanism but also help to achieve the unification of gauge couplings and are expected to lead to substantial lepton flavor violating rates, offering tangible opportunities for experimental verification. Reproducing the observed neutrino mass scale necessitates that a set of leptoquarks reside a few orders of magnitude below the unification scale–a specific feature of the proposed scenario. Moreover, maximizing the unification scale implies TeV scale new physics states, making them accessible at colliders. The diverse roles that leptoquarks play highlight the elegance and predictive ability of the proposed unified model.

Once-in-a-lifetime encounter models for neutrino media: From coherent oscillations to flavor equilibration

Collective neutrino oscillations are typically studied using the lowest-order quantum kinetic equation, also known as the mean-field approximation. However, some recent quantum many-body simulations suggest that quantum entanglement among neutrinos may be important and may result in flavor equilibration of the neutrino gas. In this work, we develop new quantum models for neutrino gases in which any pair of neutrinos can interact at most once in their lifetimes. A key parameter of our models is γ=μΔz, where μ is the neutrino coupling strength, which is proportional to the neutrino density, and Δz is the duration over which a pair of neutrinos can interact each time. Our models reduce to the mean-field approach in the limit γ→0 and achieve flavor equilibration in time t≫(γμ)−1. These models demonstrate the emergence of coherent flavor oscillations from the particle perspective and may help elucidate the role of quantum entanglement in collective neutrino oscillations. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Exploring solar neutrino oscillation parameters with the liquid scintillator counter at Yemilab with a comparison to JUNO

We investigate the sensitivities of the liquid scintillator counter (LSC) at Yemilab and JUNO to solar neutrino oscillation parameters, focusing on θ12 and Δm212. We compare the potential of JUNO with LSC at Yemilab utilizing both reactor and solar data in determining those parameters. We find that the solar neutrino data of LSC at Yemilab is highly sensitive to θ12 enabling its determination with a higher precision compared to reactor experiments. Our study also reveals that if Δm212 is larger, with a value close to the best-fit value of KamLAND, JUNO reactor data will have about two times better precision than the reactor LSC at Yemilab. On the other hand, if Δm212 is smaller and closer to the best-fit value of solar neutrino experiments, the precision of the reactor LSC at Yemilab will be better than JUNO. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Quantum entanglement between neutrino eigenstates in the presence of the subsequent phase shift of the neutrino oscillations

Abstract In this study, using von Neumann entropy we examine the entanglement entropy for the neutrino oscillations in the presence of the subsequent phase shift. We numerically show that the entanglement entropy for the subsequent periods of the two-flavor neutrino oscillations increases asymmetrically with time depending on the space-time deformation. We also explored the obtained results for the three-flavor neutrino oscillations to show that this result is also valid for the three-flavor neutrino oscillations. These results, obtained for the first time in this study, are quite different from the computing for the standard neutrino oscillation theory. We concluded that these interesting results play an important role in the cosmology.

Measurement of electron neutrino and antineutrino cross sections at low momentum transfer

Accelerator based neutrino oscillation experiments seek to measure the relative number of electron and muon (anti)neutrinos at different L/E values. However high statistics studies of neutrino interactions are almost exclusively measured using muon (anti)neutrinos since the dominant flavor of neutrinos produced by accelerator based beams are of the muon type. This work reports new measurements of electron (anti)neutrinos interactions in hydrocarbon, obtained by strongly suppressing backgrounds initiated by muon flavor (anti)neutrinos. Double differential cross sections as a function of visible energy transfer, Eavail, and transverse momentum transfer, pT, or three momentum transfer, q3 are presented. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Combined Analysis of Neutrino and Antineutrino Charged Current Inclusive Interactions

Combined Analysis of Neutrino and Antineutrino Charged Current Inclusive Interactions

Importance sampling method for Feldman-Cousins confidence intervals

In various high-energy physics contexts, such as neutrino-oscillation experiments, several assumptions underlying the typical asymptotic confidence interval construction are violated, such that one has to resort to computationally expensive methods like the Feldman-Cousins method for obtaining confidence intervals with proper statistical coverage. By construction, the computation of intervals at high confidence levels requires fitting millions or billions of pseudoexperiments, while wasting most of the computational cost on overly precise intervals at low confidence levels. In this work, a simple importance sampling method is introduced that reuses pseudoexperiments produced for all tested parameter values in a single mixture distribution. This results in a significant error reduction on the estimated critical values, especially at high confidence levels, and simultaneously yields a correct interpolation of these critical values between the parameter values at which the pseudoexperiments were produced. The theoretically calculated performance is demonstrated numerically using a simple example from the analysis of neutrino oscillations. The relationship to similar techniques applied in statistical mechanics and p-value computations is discussed. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Prediction of the non-SUSY AdS conjecture on the lightest neutrino mass revisited

We study the constraint of the nonsupersymmetric (non-SUSY) anti–de Sitter (AdS) conjecture on the three-dimensional vacua obtained from the compactification of the Standard Model coupled to Einstein gravity on a circle where the three-dimensional components of the four-dimensional metric are general functions of both noncompact and compact coordinates. We find from studying the wave function profile of the three-dimensional metric in the compactified dimension that the radius of the compactified dimension must be quantized. Consequently, the three-dimensional vacua are constrained by not only the non-SUSY AdS conjecture but also the quantization rule of the circle radius, leading to both upper and lower bounds for the mass of the lightest neutrino as 2≤mν/Λ4<3, where Λ4≃5.06×10−84 GeV2 is the observed cosmological constant. This means that the lightest neutrino should have a mass around 10−32 eV or it would be approximately massless. With this prediction, we reconstruct the light neutrino mass matrix that is fixed by the neutrino oscillation data and in terms of three new mixing angles and six new phases for both the normal ordering and inverted ordering. In the situation where the light neutrino mass matrix is Hermitian, we calculate its numerical value in the 3σ range. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Neutrino Lorentz invariance violation from cosmic fields

From a cosmological perspective, scalar fields are well-motivated dark matter and dark energy candidates. Several possibilities of neutrino couplings with a time-varying cosmic field have been investigated in the literature. In this work, we present a framework in which violations of Lorentz invariance (LIV) and CPT symmetry in the neutrino sector could arise from an interaction among neutrinos with a time-varying scalar field. Furthermore, some cosmological and phenomenological aspects and constraints concerning this type of interaction are discussed. Potential violations of Lorentz and CPT symmetries at present and future neutrino oscillation experiments such as IceCube and KM3NeT can probe this scenario.

Solar neutrino measurements using the full data period of Super-Kamiokande-IV

An analysis of solar neutrino data from the fourth phase of Super-Kamiokande (SK-IV) from October 2008 to May 2018 is performed and the results are presented. The observation time of the dataset of SK-IV corresponds to 2970 days and the total live time for all four phases is 5805 days. For more precise solar neutrino measurements, several improvements are applied in this analysis: lowering the data acquisition threshold in May 2015, further reduction of the spallation background using neutron clustering events, precise energy reconstruction considering the time variation of the PMT gain. The observed number of solar neutrino events in 3.49–19.49 MeV electron kinetic energy region during SK-IV is 65,443−388+390(stat.)±925(syst.) events. Corresponding B8 solar neutrino flux is (2.314±0.014(stat.)±0.040(syst.))×106 cm−2 s−1, assuming a pure electron-neutrino flavor component without neutrino oscillations. The flux combined with all SK phases up to SK-IV is (2.336±0.011(stat.)±0.043(syst.))×106 cm−2 s−1. Based on the neutrino oscillation analysis from all solar experiments, including the SK 5805 days dataset, the best-fit neutrino oscillation parameters are sin2θ12,solar=0.306±0.013 and Δm21,solar2=(6.10−0.81+0.95)×10−5 eV2, with a deviation of about 1.5σ from the Δm212 parameter obtained by KamLAND. The best-fit neutrino oscillation parameters obtained from all solar experiments and KamLAND are sin2θ12,global=0.307±0.012 and Δm21,global2=(7.50−0.18+0.19)×10−5 eV2. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Minimal flavour deconstruction

We construct two concrete examples of flavour non-universal gauge theories which, after the inclusion of all d ≤ 4 gauge invariant operators, allow to describe the observed pattern of flavour in the charged fermion sector without any small Yukawa coupling (y ≳ 0.1). Guided by the criterium of minimality, we assume that flavour non universality is confined to the Abelian sector of the gauge group: the universal hypercharge emerges after a sequence of symmetry-breaking steps characterised by two high mass scales, Λ[23]< Λ[12], where the second and the first fermion generations get their mass respectively. At least in one of the two models the smaller of these scales can be in the 10 TeV range, consistently with current bounds from flavour observables. Both models are extended to include as well neutrino masses and mixings.

Collimated muon beam proposal for probing neutrino charge-parity violation

AbstractThe phenomenon of neutrino oscillation is of great theoretical and experimental interest for our understand of the nature of the neutrino and its implication for physics beyond the standard Model. Currently available neutrino oscillation experiments can already constrain neutrino mixing parameters with a confidence level up to 3 standard deviations (σ). However, it remains challenging to provide a deterministic constraint on the Charge-Parity (CP) violation phase of the neutrino mixing matrix. Here, we propose an experimental setup that exploits collimated muon beams to probe neutrino CP-violation. In our proposed acceleration experiment, a 45 GeV positron source with additional muon collimation, interfaces with near-future neutrino detectors like DUNE and T2K, to probe neutrino CP-violation phase with a significantly higher sensitivity than obtained with the neutrino detectors alone, and to determine tau neutrino properties. Simulations estimate the collection of 104 tau (anti-) neutrino in 5 years, and a sensitivity of over 7 standard deviations for δCP = ∣π/2∣ in 5 years. Collecting ντ appearance events from μ− and μ+ beams over 10 years can attain a 3-4 standard deviation sensitivity. This proposal may serve as a tau factory.

Atmospheric neutrino oscillation analysis with neutron tagging and an expanded fiducial volume in Super-Kamiokande I–V

We present a measurement of neutrino oscillation parameters with the Super-Kamiokande detector using atmospheric neutrinos from the complete pure-water SK I–V (April 1996–July 2020) dataset, including events from an expanded fiducial volume. The dataset corresponds to 6511.3 live days and an exposure of 484.2 kiloton-years. Measurements of the neutrino oscillation parameters Δm322, sin2θ23, sin2θ13, δCP, and the preference for the neutrino mass ordering are presented with atmospheric neutrino data alone, and with constraints on sin2θ13 from reactor neutrino experiments. Our analysis including constraints on sin2θ13 favors the normal mass ordering at the 92.3% level. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

NSI effects on tripartite entanglement in neutrino oscillations

In this study, we investigate the impact of new physics on different measures of tripartite entanglement within the context of three-flavor neutrino oscillations. These measures encompass concurrence, entanglement of formation, and negativity. We analyze the influence of new physics on these measures across a range of experimental setups involving both reactors and accelerators. Reactor experiments under consideration include Daya Bay, JUNO, and KamLAND setups, while accelerator experiments encompass T2K, MINOS, and DUNE. Our analysis reveals that accelerator experiments demonstrate greater sensitivity to NSI, with the most pronounced impact observed in the DUNE experiment. Negativity, while a weaker metric compared to EOF and concurrence, exhibits maximal sensitivity to NSI effects, particularly evident when neutrinos possess moderate to high energies. Conversely, reactor experiments demonstrate less sensitivity to NSI, with concurrence and EOF displaying more prominent effects.

Sensitivity of octant of θ23, CP violation and mass hierarchy in NOνA with multinucleon and detector effects

In this work, we investigate how multinucleon enhancement and RPA (Random Phase Approximation) suppression can affect the measurement of three unknown neutrino oscillation parameters — the CP-violating phase δCP, the octant of the atmospheric mixing angle θ23, and the determination of the mass hierarchy, in the appearance channel of the NOνA experiment. We include the presence of the detector effect as well in the analysis, which is crucial for capturing realistic experimental scenarios. We also conducted a comparison between the nuclear model Effective Spectral Function (calculated within the RFG model) with and without Transverse Enhancement in terms of sensitivity analysis. It is found that the analysis using our comprehensive model QE(+RPA)+2p2h along with Effective Spectral Function+Transverse Enhancement exhibits significantly enhanced sensitivity compared to the pure QE interaction process, in all the cases. Also, the higher octant of θ23, the lower half plane of δCP, and the normal mass hierarchy (HO-LHP-NH) exhibit improved sensitivity, enabling a more precise determination of the corresponding parameters. Furthermore, it is also noted that improving the performance of the detector also improves the results. Thus, including multinucleon effects and improving detector efficiency have the potential to enhance the capabilities of the NOνA (and other long baseline) experiment in conducting precise parameter studies.

Fast exact algorithm for neutrino oscillation in constant matter density

A recently published method [1,2] for solving the neutrino evolution equation with constant matter density is further refined and used to lay out an exact algorithm for computing oscillation probabilities, which is moderately faster than previous methods when looping through neutrinos of different energies. In particular, the three examples of ν(−)e survival, ν(−)μ survival and ν(−)e appearance probabilities are written in terms of mixing angles, mass differences and matter electron density. A program based on this new method is found to be roughly twice as fast as, and in agreement with, the leading GLoBES package. Furthermore, the behaviour of all relevant effective parameters is sketched out in terms of a range of neutrino energies, or matter electron densities. For instance, the ν(−)e survival probability in constant matter density is found to have no dependence on the mixing angle θ23 or the CP-violating phase δ13.

Measurement of the photon detection efficiency of Hamamatsu VUV4 SiPMS at cryogenic temperature

Liquid argon time projection chambers (TPC) are widely used in neutrino oscillation and dark matter experiments. Detection of scintillation light in liquid argon TPC’s is challenging because of its short wavelength, in the VUV range, and the cryogenic temperatures (∼86 K) at which the sensors must operate. Wavelength shifters (WLS) are typically needed to take advantage of the high Photon Detection Efficiency (PDE) in the visible range of most of photondetectors. The Hamamatsu VUV4 S13370–6075CN SiPMs can directly detect VUV light without the use of WLS, which main benefit is an improved PDE at these short wavelengths, but also the visible light from WLS. The manufacturer (Hamamatsu Photonics K.K.) provides a complete characterization of these devices at room temperature; however, previous studies have indicated a decrease of the PDE at cryogenic temperature for VUV light. In this work, we present the measurement of the PDE of VUV4 SiPMs at cryogenic temperature for different wavelengths in the range [270, 570] nm. A dedicated measurement at 127 nm is also shown.

CP violation in lepton-number-conserving processes through heavy Majorana neutrinos at future lepton colliders

Small neutrino masses confirmed in the neutrino oscillation experiments indicate the need for new physics beyond the standard model. Seesaw mechanism is an interesting way to extend the standard model for explaining the neutrino masses. In a low-scale type-I seesaw mechanism, the tiny masses of neutrinos can be explained by heavy Majorana neutrino masses. Heavy Majorana neutrinos can lead to lepton-number-violating processes and the induced CP violation can contribute to the baryon asymmetry in the Universe. Heavy Majorana neutrinos can also lead to lepton-number-conserving processes and in this paper, we study the CP violation in lepton-number-conserving processes through heavy Majorana neutrinos at future lepton colliders. New possible observations of CP violation can also be connected to evidences of new physics beyond the standard model.

Observation of Seven Astrophysical Tau Neutrino Candidates with IceCube.

We report on a measurement of astrophysical tau neutrinos with 9.7yr of IceCube data. Using convolutional neural networks trained on images derived from simulated events, seven candidate ν_{τ} events were found with visible energies ranging from roughly 20TeV to 1PeV and a median expected parent ν_{τ} energy of about 200TeV. Considering backgrounds from astrophysical and atmospheric neutrinos, and muons from π^{±}/K^{±} decays in atmospheric air showers, we obtain a total estimated background of about 0.5 events, dominated by non-ν_{τ} astrophysical neutrinos. Thus, we rule out the absence of astrophysical ν_{τ} at the 5σ level. The measured astrophysical ν_{τ} flux is consistent with expectations based on previously published IceCube astrophysical neutrino flux measurements and neutrino oscillations.