Non-standard Interactions Parameters Research Articles

Exploring the sensitivity to non-standard neutrino interactions of NaI and cryogenic CsI detectors at the Spallation Neutron Source

After the first observation of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEνNS) by the COHERENT Collaboration, many efforts are being made to improve the measurement of this process, making it possible to constrain new physics in the neutrino sector. In this paper, we study the sensitivity to non-standard interactions (NSIs) and generalized neutrino interactions of two experimental setups at the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory: a NaI detector with characteristics similar to the one that is currently being deployed there and a cryogenic CsI detector proposed at the same facility. We show that a combined analysis of the data from these detectors, whose target nuclei have significantly different proton-to-neutron ratios, could help to partially break the parameter degeneracies arising from the interference between the Standard Model and NSI contributions to the CEνNS cross section, as well as between different NSI parameters. By contrast, only a slight improvement over the current CsI constraints is expected for parameters that do not interfere with the SM contribution. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Search for CP-Violating Neutrino Nonstandard Interactions with the NOvA Experiment.

This Letter reports a search for charge-parity (CP) symmetry violating nonstandard interactions (NSI) of neutrinos with matter using the NOvA Experiment, and examines their effects on the determination of the standard oscillation parameters. Data from ν_{μ}(ν[over ¯]_{μ})→ν_{μ}(ν[over ¯]_{μ}) and ν_{μ}(ν[over ¯]_{μ})→ν_{e}(ν[over ¯]_{e}) oscillation channels are used to measure the effect of the NSI parameters ϵ_{eμ} and ϵ_{eτ}. With 90%CL the magnitudes of the NSI couplings are constrained to be |ϵ_{eμ}|≲0.3 and |ϵ_{eτ}|≲0.4. A degeneracy at |ϵ_{eτ}|≈1.8 is reported, and we observe that the presence of NSI limits sensitivity to the standard CP phase δ_{CP}.

Non-standard neutrino interactions mediated by a light scalar at DUNE

We investigate the effect on neutrino oscillations generated by beyond-the-standard-model interactions between neutrinos and matter. Specifically, we focus on scalar-mediated non-standard interactions (NSI) whose impact fundamentally differs from that of vector-mediated NSI. Scalar NSI contribute as corrections to the neutrino mass matrix rather than the matter potential and thereby predict distinct phenomenology from the vector-mediated ones. Similar to vector-type NSI, the presence of scalar-mediated neutrino NSI can influence measurements of oscillation parameters in long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments, with a notable impact on CP measurement in the case of DUNE. Our study focuses on the effect of scalar NSI on neutrino oscillations, using DUNE as an example. We introduce a model-independent parameterization procedure that enables the examination of the impact of all non-zero scalar NSI parameters simultaneously. Subsequently, we convert DUNE’s sensitivity to the NSI parameters into projected sensitivity concerning the parameters of a light scalar model. We compare these results with existing non-oscillation probes. Our findings reveal that the region of the light scalar parameter space sensitive to DUNE is predominantly excluded by non-oscillation probes, especially when considering all nonzero parameters simultaneously for DUNE.

Distinguishing nonstandard interaction and Lorentz invariance violation at the Protvino to super-ORCA experiment

As the two phenomena nonstandard interaction (NSI) in neutrino propagation and Lorentz invariance violation (LIV) modify the Hamiltonian of neutrino oscillation in a similar fashion, it is very difficult to distinguish these two effects. The only difference between them lies in the fact that NSI depends on the matter density, whereas LIV is independent of the earth matter effect. Therefore for a fixed baseline experiment, where matter density is constant, the theories describing NSI and LIV are exactly equivalent. However, as the present and future bounds of the NSI and LIV parameters are not equivalent, one can distinguish these two scenarios in the long-baseline neutrino experiments depending on their statistics with respect to the present and future bounds of these parameters. In this paper, we attempt to differentiate between LIV and NSI in the context of DUNE and P2SO, as these two future experiments are believed to be sensitive to the strongest matter effect and will have very large statistics. Taking LIV in the data and NSI in theory, our results show that indeed it is possible to have good discrimination between LIV and NSI. The best separation between LIV and NSI at $3\ensuremath{\sigma}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{C}.\mathrm{L}.$ is achieved for the parameter ${a}_{\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\mu}}$ with P2SO. In this case, the value of the LIV parameter, for which separation is possible, lies within its future bound if one considers the value of NSI parameter to be constrained by the present experiments. Between DUNE and P2SO, the latter has better sensitivity for such discrimination.

Imprints of scalar NSI on the CP-violation sensitivity using synergy among DUNE, T2HK and T2HKK

The Non-Standard Interactions (NSIs) are subdominant effects, often appearing in various extensions of SM, which may impact the neutrino oscillations through matter. It is important and interesting to explore the impact of NSIs in the ongoing and upcoming precise neutrino oscillations experiments. In this work, we have studied the imprints of a scalar-mediated NSI in three upcoming long-baseline (LBL) experiments (DUNE, T2HK and T2HKK). The effects of scalar NSI appears as a medium-dependent correction to the neutrino mass term. Its contribution scales linearly with matter density, making LBL experiments a suitable candidate to probe its effects. We show that the scalar NSI may significantly impact the oscillation probabilities, event rates at the detectors and the χ2-sensitivities of δCP measurements. We present the results of a combined analysis involving the LBL experiments (DUNE+T2HK or DUNE+T2HKK) which offer a better capability of constraining the scalar NSI parameters as well as an improved sensitivity towards CP-violation.

Optimal configuration of Protvino to ORCA experiment for hierarchy and non-standard interactions

In this paper, we study the hierarchy sensitivity of Protvino to ORCA (P2O) experiment in three flavour scenario as well as its sensitivity to non-standard interactions (NSI) in neutrino propagation. Because of the largest possible baseline length of 2595 km, P2O is expected to have strong sensitivity towards neutrino mass hierarchy and NSI parameters. In our study, we show that even though the number of appearance channel events for the minimal configuration of P2O are higher compared to DUNE, still the hierarchy sensitivity of P2O is less than DUNE because of large background events. Our results show that for a background reduction factor of 0.46 and appearance channel background systematic normalization error of 4%, the hierarchy sensitivity of P2O becomes equivalent of DUNE for δCP = 195°. We call this configuration of P2O as optimized P2O. Regarding the study of NSI, we find that, for ϵeμ (ϵeτ) sensitivity of DUNE is similar (better) as compared to optimized P2O when both ϵeμ and ϵeτ are included in the analysis. Our results show that in presence of NSI, the change of hierarchy sensitivity with respect to standard three flavor scenario, is higher in P2O as compared to DUNE. Further, hierarchy sensitivity in presence of NSI is lower (higher) than sensitivity in the standard three flavour scenario for δCP = 270°(90°). It is important to note that hierarchy sensitivity of optimized P2O does not get significantly better than DUNE for the current favourable values of δCP which is 180° < δCP< 360° as obtained by the global analysis in both standard three flavour and in presence of NSI.

Cosmological radiation density with non-standard neutrino-electron interactions

Non-standard interactions (NSI) between neutrinos and electrons can significantly modify the decoupling of neutrinos from the plasma. These interactions have two effects on the overall picture: (i) they alter neutrino oscillations though matter effects and (ii) they modify the scattering and annihilation processes involving neutrinos and electrons and positrons. We study the role of non-universal and flavour-changing NSI in the decoupling and how they impact the determination of the effective number of neutrinos, N eff. We examine the degeneracies between NSI parameters and we compare the expected sensitivity from future cosmological surveys with the current limits from terrestrial experiments. We outline the complementarity between both approaches.

Probing source and detector nonstandard interaction parameters at the DUNE near detector

We investigate the capability of the DUNE near detector (ND) to constrain nonstandard interaction parameters (NSIs) describing the production of neutrinos $({ϵ}_{\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremath{\beta}}^{s})$ and their detection $({ϵ}_{\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremath{\beta}}^{d})$. We show that the DUNE ND is able to reject a large portion of the parameter space allowed by DUNE far detector analyses and to set the most stringent bounds from accelerator neutrino experiments on $|{ϵ}_{\ensuremath{\mu}e}^{s,d}|$ for wide intervals of the related phases. We also provide simple analytic understanding of our results as well as a numerical study of their dependence on the systematic errors, showing that the DUNE ND offers a clean environment to study source and detector NSIs.

Enhanced violation of Leggett–Garg inequality in three flavour neutrino oscillations via non-standard interactions

Neutrino oscillations occur due to non-zero masses and mixings and most importantly they are believed to maintain quantum coherence even over astrophysical length scales. In the present study, we explore the quantumness of three flavour neutrino oscillations by studying the extent of violation of Leggett–Garg inequalities (LGI) if non-standard interactions (NSI) are taken into account. We report an enhancement in violation of LGI with respect to the standard scenario for appropriate choice of NSI parameters.

Sensitivities of future reactor and long-baseline neutrino experiments to NSI

We investigate the potential of the next generation long-baseline neutrino experiments DUNE and T2HK as well as the upcoming reactor experiment JUNO to constrain Non-Standard Interaction (NSI) parameters. JUNO is going to provide the most precise measurements of solar neutrino oscillation parameters as well as determining the neutrino mass ordering. We study how the results of JUNO combined with those of long-baseline neutrino experiments such as DUNE and T2HK can help to determine oscillation parameters and to constrain NSI parameters. We present excluded regions in NSI parameter space, $\epsilon_{\alpha \beta}$ assuming Standard Model (SM) as the null hypothesis. We further explore the correlations between the NSI parameters and CP-violation phase.

Effects of nonstandard interaction on temporal and spatial correlations in neutrino oscillations

Effects of physics beyond the standard model in the neutrino sector are conveniently incorporated through non-standard interaction parameters. Assuming new physics in the form of dimension-6 vector operators, a recent global analysis of neutrino oscillation data including results from COHERENT experiment suggests two favourable new physics scenarios. These are LMA-Light (with normal mass ordering) and LMA-Dark (with inverted mass ordering) sectors of parameters. In this work, we study the effects of new physics solutions on Leggett–Garg-type (LGtI) inequality which quantifies temporal correlations in the system along with flavour entropy and genuine tripartite entanglement which can be considered as measures of spatial correlations. We show that the violation of LGtI for nu _{mu } energy around 3 GeV in the DUNE experimental set-up can not only be an indication of presence of new physics but such a new physics is expected to be in the form of LMA-Dark sector with inverted ordering. Further, we show that the LMA-Light solution, in general, decreases the values of all measures of quantum correlations in comparison to their SM predictions. On the other hand, the Dark solution can significantly enhance the values of these measures.

Consistent QFT description of non-standard neutrino interactions

Neutrino oscillations are precision probes of new physics. Apart from neutrino masses and mixings, they are also sensitive to possible deviations of low-energy interactions between quarks and leptons from the Standard Model predictions. In this paper we develop a systematic description of such non-standard interactions (NSI) in oscillation experiments within the quantum field theory framework. We calculate the event rate and oscillation probability in the presence of general NSI, starting from the effective field theory (EFT) in which new physics modifies the flavor or Lorentz structure of charged-current interactions between leptons and quarks. We also provide the matching between the EFT Wilson coefficients and the widely used simplified quantum-mechanical approach, where new physics is encoded in a set of production and detection NSI parameters. Finally, we discuss the consistency conditions for the standard NSI approach to correctly reproduce the quantum field theory result.

Neutrino oscillations at low energy long baseline experiments in the presence of nonstandard interactions and parameter degeneracy

Abstract We discuss the analytical expression of the oscillation probabilities at low energy long baseline experiments, such as Tokai to HyperKamiokande (T2HK) and Tokai to HyperKamioka and Korea (T2HKK), in the presence of nonstandard interactions (NSIs). We show that these experiments are advantageous in the exploration of the NSI parameters ($\epsilon_D$, $\epsilon_N$), which were suggested to be nonvanishing to account for the discrepancy between the solar neutrino and Kamioka Liquid scintillator Anti-Neutrino Detector data. We also show that, when the NSI parameters are small, parameter degeneracy in the CP phase $\delta$, $\epsilon_D$ and $\epsilon_N$ can be resolved by combining data of the T2HK and T2HKK experiments.

Nonstandard neutrino interactions and mu-tau reflection symmetry

Nonstandard interactions (NSIs), possible subleading effects originating from new physics beyond the Standard Model, may affect the propagation of neutrinos and eventually contribute to measurements of neutrino oscillations. Besides this, $ \mu-\tau $ reflection symmetry, naturally predicted by non-Abelian discrete flavor symmetries, has been very successful in explaining the observed leptonic mixing patterns. In this work, we study the combined effect of both. We present an $S_4$ flavor model with $\mu-\tau$ reflection symmetry realized in both neutrino masses and NSIs. Under this formalism, we perform a detailed study for the upcoming neutrino experiments DUNE and T2HK. Our simulation results show that under the $\mu-\tau $ reflection symmetry, NSI parameters are further constrained and the mass ordering sensitivity is less affected by the presence of NSIs.

Neutrino nonstandard interactions via light scalars in the Earth, Sun, supernovae, and the early Universe

Non-standard interactions (NSI) of neutrinos with matter mediated by a scalar field would induce medium-dependent neutrino masses which can modify oscillation probabilities. Generating observable effects requires an ultra-light scalar mediator. We derive general expressions for the scalar NSI using techniques of quantum field theory at finite density and temperature, including the long-range force effects, and discuss various limiting cases applicable to the neutrino propagation in different media, such as the Earth, Sun, supernovae and early Universe. We also analyze various terrestrial and space-based experimental constraints, as well as astrophysical and cosmological constraints on these NSI parameters, applicable to either Dirac or Majorana neutrinos. By combining all these constraints, we show that observable scalar NSI effects, although precluded in terrestrial experiments, are still possible in future solar and supernovae neutrino data, and in cosmological observations such as cosmic microwave background and big bang nucleosynthesis data.

Zee-Burst: A New Probe of Neutrino Nonstandard Interactions at IceCube.

We propose a new way to probe nonstandard interactions (NSI) of neutrinos with matter using the ultrahigh energy (UHE) neutrino data at current and future neutrino telescopes. We consider the Zee model of radiative neutrino mass generation as a prototype, which allows two charged scalars-one SU(2)_{L} doublet and one singlet, both being leptophilic, to be as light as 100GeV, thereby inducing potentially observable NSI with electrons. We show that these light charged Zee scalars could give rise to a Glashow-like resonance feature in the UHE neutrino event spectrum at the IceCube neutrino observatory and its high-energy upgrade IceCube-Gen2, which can probe a sizable fraction of the allowed NSI parameter space.

Nonstandard Interactions and Prospects for Studying Standard Parameter Degeneracies in DUNE and T2HKK

The future long baseline experiments such as DUNE and T2HKK have promising prospects to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy and measuring standard CP phase δ. However, presence of possible nonstandard interactions of neutrinos with matter may intricate this picture and is the subject matter of the present work. We have studied the standard parameter degeneracies in presence of nonstandard interactions (NSI) with DUNE and T2HKK experiments. We examine the mass hierarchy degeneracy assuming (i) all NSI parameters to be nonzero and (ii) one NSI parameter (ϵeμ) and its corresponding CP phase (δeμ) to be nonzero. We find that the latter case is more appropriate to resolve mass hierarchy degeneracy with DUNE and T2HKK experiments due to relatively small uncertainties emanating from the NSI sector. We have, also, investigated the octant degeneracy with neutrino (νμ→νe) and antineutrino (ν¯μ→ν¯e) mode separately. We find that to resolve this degeneracy the long baseline experiment with combination of neutrino and antineutrino mode is essential. Furthermore, we have considered DUNE in conjunction with T2HKK experiment to study CP phase degeneracy due to standard (δ) and nonstandard (δeμ) CP phases. We find that DUNE and T2HKK, in conjunction, have more sensitivity for CP violation effects (10σ for true NH and 8.2σ for true IH).

Probing electromagnetic neutrino properties within the tensor non-standard neutrino-nucleus interactions

Non-standard coherent neutrino scattering off nuclei is extensively studied through realistic nuclear structure calculations performed within the framework of the quasi-particle random phase approximation (QRPA). More specifically, we focus on the accurate estimation of the number of events expected to be measured by the COHERENT experiment at the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge, as well as by the reactor neutrino experiments TEXONO and GEMMA. To this purpose our study concentrates on the relevant detector materials 20 Ne, 40 Ar, 76 Ge and 132 Xe. In this context, we obtain stringent constraints on the vector and tensor non-standard interaction parameters and examine their impact on various electromagnetic neutrino phenomena such as neutrino magnetic moments and neutrino milli-charges. Our results indicate that the aforementioned experiments offer significant prospects to probe neutrino properties predicted in theories beyond the Standard Model.

Prospects for exploring New Physics in Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering

Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering (CEvNS) is a Standard Model process that, although predicted for decades, has only been detected recently by the COHERENT collaboration. Now that CEvNS has been discovered, it provides a new probe for physics beyond the Standard Model. We study the potential to probe New Physics with CEvNS through the use of low temperature bolometers at a reactor source. We consider contributions to CEvNS due to a neutrino magnetic moment (NMM), Non-Standard Interactions (NSI) that may or may not change flavor, and simplified models containing a massive scalar or vector mediator. Targets consisting of Ge, Zn, Si, CaWO4, and Al2O3 are examined. We show that by reaching a percentage-level precision measurement on the CEvNS energy spectrum down to \U0001d4aa(10) eV, forthcoming experiments will improve by two orders of magnitude both the CEvNS-based NMM limit and the search for new massive mediators. Additionally, we demonstrate that such dedicated low-threshold CEvNS experiments will lead to unprecedented constraints on NSI parameters (particularly when multiple targets are combined) which will have major implications for the global neutrino physics program.

Exploring NSI degeneracies in long-baseline experiments

One of the main purposes of long-baseline neutrino experiments is to unambiguously measure the CP violating phase in the neutrino sector within the three neutrino oscillation picture. In the presence of physics beyond the Standard Model, the determination of the CP phase will be more difficult, due to the already known degeneracy problem. Working in the framework of non-standard interactions (NSI), we compute the appearance probabilities in an exact analytical formulation and analyze the region of parameters where the confusion problem is present. We also discuss some cases where the falsification of the NSI parameters can be done in long-baseline experiments.