Neutrino Pulse Research Articles

Constraining nonstandard interactions with coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering at the European Spallation Source

The European Spallation Source (ESS), currently under construction in Sweden, will provide an intense pulsed neutrino flux allowing for high-statistics measurements of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CE{\nu}NS) with advanced nuclear recoil detectors. In this paper, we investigate in detail the possibility of constraining non-standard neutrino interactions (NSIs) through such precision CE{\nu}NS measurements at the ESS, considering the different proposed detection technologies, either alone or in combination. We first study the sensitivity to neutral-current NSI parameters that each detector can reach in 3 years of data taking. We then show that operating two detectors simultaneously can significantly improve the expected sensitivity on flavor-diagonal NSI parameters. Combining the results of two detectors turns out to be even more useful when two NSI parameters are assumed to be nonvanishing at a time. In this case, suitably chosen detector combinations can reduce the degeneracies between some pairs of NSI parameters to a small region of the parameter space.

The JSNS[formula omitted] detector

The JSNS2 (J-PARC Sterile Neutrino Search at J-PARC Spallation Neutron Source) experiment aims to search for oscillations involving a sterile neutrino in the eV2 mass-splitting range. The experiment will search for the appearance of electron antineutrinos oscillated from muon antineutrinos. The electron antineutrinos are detected via the inverse beta decay process using a liquid scintillator detector. A 1MW beam of 3GeV protons incident on a spallation neutron target produces an intense and pulsed neutrino source from pion, muon, and kaon decay at rest. The JSNS2 detector is located 24m away from the neutrino source and began operation from June 2020. The detector contains 17 tonnes of gadolinium (Gd) loaded liquid scintillator (LS) in an acrylic vessel, as a neutrino target. It is surrounded by 31 tonnes of unloaded LS in a stainless steel tank. Optical photons produced in LS are viewed by 120 R7081 Hamamatsu 10-inch Photomultiplier Tubes (PMTs). In this paper, we describe the JSNS2 detector design, construction, and operation.

Determining the nuclear neutron distribution from Coherent Elastic neutrino-Nucleus Scattering: current results and future prospects

Coherent Elastic neutrino-Nucleus Scattering (CEνNS), a process recently measured for the first time at ORNL’s Spallation Neutron Source, is directly sensitive to the weak form factor of the nucleus. The European Spallation Source (ESS), presently under construction, will generate the most intense pulsed neutrino flux suitable for the detection of CEνNS. In this paper we quantify its potential to determine the root mean square radius of the point-neutron distribution, for a variety of target nuclei and a suite of detectors. To put our results in context we also derive, for the first time, a constraint on this parameter from the analysis of the energy and timing data of the CsI detector at the COHERENT experiment.

Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering at the European Spallation Source

The European Spallation Source (ESS), presently well on its way to completion, will soon provide the most intense neutron beams for multi-disciplinary science. Fortuitously, it will also generate the largest pulsed neutrino flux suitable for the detection of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering (CEνNS), a process recently measured for the first time at ORNL’s Spallation Neutron Source. We describe innovative detector technologies maximally able to profit from the order-of-magnitude increase in neutrino flux provided by the ESS, along with their sensitivity to a rich particle physics phenomenology accessible through high-statistics, precision CEνNS measurements.

Possible Explanation of the Geograv Detector Signal during the Explosion of SN 1987A in Modified Gravity Models

A change in gravity law in some regimes is predicted in the modified gravity models that are actively discussed at present. In this paper, we consider a possibility that the signal recorded by the Geograv resonant gravitational-wave detector in 1987 during the explosion of SN 1987A was produced by an abrupt change in the metric during the passage of a strong neutrino flux through the detector. Such an impact on the detector is possible, in particular, in extended scalar-tensor theories in which the local matter density gradient affects the gravitational force. The first short neutrino pulse emitted at the initial stage of stellar core collapse before the onset of neutrino opacity could exert a major influence on the detector by exiting the detector response at the main resonance frequency. In contrast, the influence of the subsequent broad pulse (with a duration of several seconds) in the resonant detector is exponentially suppressed, despite the fact that the second pulse carries an order-of-magnitude more neutrino energy, and it could generate a signal in the LSD neutrino detector. This explains the time delay of 1.4s between the Geograv and LSD signals. The consequences of this effect of modified gravity for LIGO/Virgo observations are discussed.

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.

Neutrino Cloud Instabilities Just above the Neutrino Sphere of a Supernova.

Most treatments of neutrino flavor evolution, above a surface of the last scattering, take identical angular distributions on this surface for the different initial (unmixed) flavors, and for particles and antiparticles. Differences in these distributions must be present, as a result of the species-dependent scattering cross sections lower in the star. These lead to a new set of nonlinear equations, unstable even at the initial surface with respect to perturbations that break all-over spherical symmetry. There could be important consequences for explosion dynamics as well as for the neutrino pulse in the outer regions.

ESSnuSB: a Project for Leptonic CP Violation Discovery based on the European Spallation Source Linac

Very intense neutrino beams and large neutrino detectors will be needed in order to discover of CP violation in the leptonic sector. The proton driver of the European Spallation Source (ESS) currently under construction in Lund, Sweden, could provide, in parallel with the spallation neutron production, a very intense, cost effective and high performance neutrino beam. The ESS linac will be fully operational at 5 MW average power by 2022. The proposal presented here is to upgrade the linac to give another 5 MW to produce neutrinos i.e. 10 MW average power, in total. The high current required in the pulsed neutrino horn, requires proton pulses compressed from 2.86 ms to a few μs in an accumulator ring. A long baseline experiment using this Super Beam and a megaton underground Water Cherenkov detector located in existing mines 300–600 km from Lund, will enable precision measurements at the second νμ→νe neutrino oscillation maximum and thereby discover leptonic CP violation at 5 σ significance level in more than 50% of the leptonic Dirac CP-violating phase range. The detector would also be used to measure the proton lifetime, detect cosmological neutrinos and neutrinos from supernova explosions. The presentation will describe the proposed facility and the physics possible with this experiment.

A very intense neutrino super beam experiment for leptonic CP violation discovery based on the European spallation source linac

Very intense neutrino beams and large neutrino detectors will be needed in order to enable the discovery of CP violation in the leptonic sector. We propose to use the proton linac of the European Spallation Source currently under construction in Lund, Sweden, to deliver, in parallel with the spallation neutron production, a very intense, cost effective and high performance neutrino beam. The baseline program for the European Spallation Source linac is that it will be fully operational at 5 MW average power by 2022, producing 2 GeV 2.86 ms long proton pulses at a rate of 14 Hz. Our proposal is to upgrade the linac to 10 MW average power and 28 Hz, producing 14 pulses/s for neutron production and 14 pulses/s for neutrino production. Furthermore, because of the high current required in the pulsed neutrino horn, the length of the pulses used for neutrino production needs to be compressed to a few μs with the aid of an accumulator ring. A long baseline experiment using this Super Beam and a megaton underground Water Cherenkov detector located in existing mines 300–600 km from Lund will make it possible to discover leptonic CP violation at 5 σ significance level in up to 50% of the leptonic Dirac CP-violating phase range. This experiment could also determine the neutrino mass hierarchy at a significance level of more than 3 σ if this issue will not already have been settled by other experiments by then. The mass hierarchy performance could be increased by combining the neutrino beam results with those obtained from atmospheric neutrinos detected by the same large volume detector. This detector will also be used to measure the proton lifetime, detect cosmological neutrinos and neutrinos from supernova explosions. Results on the sensitivity to leptonic CP violation and the neutrino mass hierarchy are presented.

CLOAKED GAMMA-RAY BURSTS

It is suggested that many $\gamma$-ray bursts (GRBs) are cloaked by an ultra-relativistic baryonic shell that has high optical depth when the photons are manufactured. Such a shell would not fully block photons reflected or emitted from its inner surface, because the radial velocity of the photons can be less than that of the shell. This avoids the standard problem associated with GRBs that the thermal component should be produced where the flow is still obscured by high optical depth. The radiation that escapes high optical depth obeys the Amati relation. Observational implications may include a) anomalously high ratios of afterglow to prompt emission, such as may have been the case in the recently discovered PTF 11agg, and b) ultrahigh-energy neutrino pulses that are non-coincident with detectable GRB. It is suggested that GRB 090510, a short, very hard GRB with very little afterglow, was an {\it exposed} GRB, in contrast to those cloaked by baryonic shells. \end{abstract}

The Cepheid galactic internet

We propose that a sufficiently advanced civilisation may employ Cepheid variable stars as beacons to transmit all-call information throughout the galaxy and beyond. They might employ a pulsed neutrino beam to trigger the expansion of a Cepheid at an earlier than normal time, generating a binary signature of normal period or artificially shortened period. One can construct many scenarios wherein it would be desirable for such a civilisation of star ticklers to transmit data to anyone else within viewing range. The beauty of employing Cepheids is that these stars can be seen from afar (we monitor them out through the Virgo cluster), and any developing technological society would seem to be likely to closely observe them as distance markers. Records exist of Cepheids for well over 100 years. We propose that these (and other regularly variable types of stars) be searched for signs of phase modulation (in the regime of short pulse duration) and patterns, which could be indicative of intentional signalling.

Green Bank Lunar Interferometer for Neutrino Transients: GLINT

The Green Bank Lunar Interferometer for Neutrino Transients ( GLINT) project is a wide band (0.3–2.6 GHz) interferometric radio array dedicated to observations of transient events. The target is detection of few bright ( > 2000 Jy ) short duration (few nano-second) pulses from the lunar regolith. The GLINT project has three goals: (1) Maximize detection of statistically significant pulses originating from the lunar surface. (2) Unambiguously differentiate neutrino pulses from other sources of interference. (3) Localize the direction of the incoming radio pulse resulting from neutrino interactions.

Oceanic ambient noise as a background to acoustic neutrino detection

Ambient noise measured in the deep ocean is studied in the context of a search for signals from ultra-high energy cosmic ray neutrinos. The spectral shape of the noise at the relevant high frequencies is found to be very stable for an extensive data set collected over several months from 49 hydrophones mounted near the bottom of the ocean at ~1600 m depth. The slopes of the ambient noise spectra above 15 kHz are found to roll-off faster than the -6 dB/octave seen in Knudsen spectra. A model attributing the source to an uniform distribution of surface noise that includes frequency-dependent absorption at large depth is found to fit the data well up to 25 kHz. This depth dependent model should therefore be used in analysis methods of acoustic neutrino pulse detection that require the expected noise spectra.

Supernova theory: Simulation and neutrino fluxes

It is now generally accepted that Type II supernovae arise from the collapse of a massive stellar core that has reached the end point of silicon burning. The observation of a neutrino pulse from Supernova 1987A strongly supports the core collapse theory. However, 1-D simulations of core collapse fail to explode unless ad hoc mechanisms are invoked. Most recent multidimensional simulations explode without ad hoc mechanisms, but many simulations do not yet produce the high energies observed in SNe. We review the state of multidimensional core collapse simulations, with particular emphasis on neutrino transport algorithms and results. What are the predicted neutrino fluxes, and how can observations constrain theory and provide insights to computational physicists?

Gravitational lensing of supernova neutrinos

The black hole at the center of the galaxy is a powerful lens for supernova neutrinos. In the very special circumstance of a supernova near the extended line of sight from Earth to the galactic center, lensing could dramatically enhance the neutrino flux at Earth and stretch the neutrino pulse.

A generic test of modified gravity models which emulate dark matter

We propose a generic test for models in which gravity is modified to do away with dark matter. These models tend to have gravitons couple to a different metric than ordinary matter. A strong test of such models comes from comparing the arrival time of the gravitational wave pulse from a cosmological event such as a supernova with the arrival times of the associated pulses of neutrinos and photons. For SN 1987a we show that the gravity wave would have arrived 5.3 days after the neutrino pulse.

Interaction of electron neutrinos with 56Fe in the LSD for E ⊻ ≤50 MeV

The neutrino pulses detected by the LSD (Liquid Scintillator Detector) on February 23, 1987, are analyzed on the basis of a two-stage model of supernova explosion. The number of events due to the electron-neutrino interaction with 56Fe in the LSD is calculated. The obtained number of signals is in agreement with experimental data.

Light curve and neutrino spectrum emitted during the collapse of a nonrotating, supermassive star

The formation of a neutrino pulse emitted during the relativistic collapse of a spherical supermassive star is considered. The free collapse of a body with uniform density in the absence of rotation and with the free escape of the emitted neutrinos can be solved analytically by quadrature. The light curve of the collapsing star and the spectrum of the emitted neutrinos at various times are calculated.

A Possibility for Studying Gravitational Properties of the Neutrino

We consider the effect that the gravitational field of a neutrino pulse radiated in the collapse of presupernova nuclei has on the observable optical radiation spectra of atoms at the supernova surface. We show that at the modern level of development of experimental methods, neutrino monitoring supplemented by optical monitoring of supernova candidates provides a unique possibility to check whether the Einstein equivalence principle is satisfied for neutrinos of each of the three types (electron, muon, and tau-lepton) and their antiparticles, to estimate the change of the gravitational potential at the surface of the star at the instant of the neutrino radiation pulse, and to obtain upper limits on the mass values of these neutrinos in a new way.

Saxion emission from SN1987A

We study the possibility of emission of the saxion, a superpartner of the axion, from SN1987A. The fact that the observed neutrino pulse from SN1987A is in excellent agreement with the current theory of supernovae places a strong bound on the energy loss into any non-standard model channel, therefore enabling bounds to be placed on the decay constant, f_a, of a light saxion. The low-energy coupling of the saxion, which couples at high energies to the QCD gauge field strength, is expected to be enhanced from QCD scaling, making it interesting to investigate if the saxion could place stronger bounds on f_a than the axion itself. Moreover, since the properties of the saxion are determined by f_a, a constraint on this parameter can be translated into a constraint on the supersymmetry breaking scale. We find that the bound on f_a from saxion emission is comparable with the one derived from axion emission due to a cancellation of leading-order terms in the soft-radiation expansion.