Search results for "PARTICLE PHYSICS"
showing 10 items of 6826 documents
Revisiting cosmological bounds on sterile neutrinos
2014
We employ state-of-the art cosmological observables including supernova surveys and BAO information to provide constraints on the mass and mixing angle of a non-resonantly produced sterile neutrino species, showing that cosmology can effectively rule out sterile neutrinos which decay between BBN and the present day. The decoupling of an additional heavy neutrino species can modify the time dependence of the Universe's expansion between BBN and recombination and, in extreme cases, lead to an additional matter-dominated period; while this could naively lead to a younger Universe with a larger Hubble parameter, it could later be compensated by the extra radiation expected in the form of neutri…
Recent Probes of Standard and Non-standard Neutrino Physics With Nuclei
2019
We review standard and non-standard neutrino physics probes that are based on nuclear measurements. We pay special attention on the discussion of prospects to extract new physics at prominent rare event measurements looking for neutrino-nucleus scattering, such as the coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CE$\nu$NS) that may involve lepton flavor violation (LFV) in neutral-currents (NC). For the latter processes several appreciably sensitive experiments are currently pursued or have been planed to operate in the near future, like the COHERENT, CONUS, CONNIE, MINER, TEXONO, RED100, vGEN, Ricochet, NUCLEUS etc. We provide a thorough discussion on phenomenological and theoretical studi…
Sterile neutrino portal to Dark Matter I: the U(1) B−L case
2017
In this paper we explore the possibility that the sterile neutrino and Dark Matter sectors in the Universe have a common origin. We study the consequences of this assumption in the simple case of coupling the dark sector to the Standard Model via a global $U(1)_{B-L}$, broken down spontaneously by a dark scalar. This dark scalar provides masses to the dark fermions and communicates with the Higgs via a Higgs portal coupling. We find an interesting interplay between Dark Matter annihilation to dark scalars - the CP-even that mixes with the Higgs and the CP-odd which becomes a Goldstone boson, the Majoron - and heavy neutrinos, as well as collider probes via the coupling to the Higgs. Moreove…
Minimal Supergravity Scalar Neutrino Dark Matter and Inverse Seesaw Neutrino Masses
2008
We show that within the inverse seesaw mechanism for generating neutrino masses minimal supergravity is more likely to have a sneutrino as the lightest superparticle than the conventional neutralino. We also demonstrate that such schemes naturally reconcile the small neutrino masses with the correct relic sneutrino dark matter abundance and accessible direct detection rates in nuclear recoil experiments.
Decaying sterile neutrinos and the short baseline oscillation anomalies
2019
The MiniBooNE experiment has observed a significant excess of electron neutrinos in a muon neutrino beam at source-detector distances too short to be compatible with standard neutrino oscillations. The most straightforward explanation for this signal in terms of oscillations between Standard Model neutrinos and a new, sterile, neutrino, is disfavored by null results from experiments looking for muon neutrino disappearance. Here, we discuss the possibility that MiniBooNE data are instead explained by a sterile neutrino that decays quickly back into active neutrinos plus a light boson. The flavor composition of the secondary neutrinos is determined by the sterile neutrino mixing angles, and w…
Exploring the Potential of Short-Baseline Physics at Fermilab
2018
We study the capabilities of the short baseline neutrino program at Fermilab to probe the unitarity of the lepton mixing matrix. We find the sensitivity to be slightly better than the current one. Motivated by the future DUNE experiment, we have also analyzed the potential of an extra liquid Argon near detector in the LBNF beamline. Adding such a near detector to the DUNE setup will substantially improve the current sensitivity on non-unitarity. This would help to remove CP degeneracies due to the new complex phase present in the neutrino mixing matrix. We also study the sensitivity of our proposed setup to light sterile neutrinos for various configurations.
EV-Scale Sterile Neutrino Search Using Eight Years of Atmospheric Muon Neutrino Data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
2020
Physical review letters 125(14), 141801 (1-11) (2020). doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.141801
SOX : short distance neutrino oscillations with Borexino
2014
Abstract The Borexino detector has convincingly shown its outstanding performance in the in the sub-MeV regime through its unprecedented accomplishments in the solar and geo-neutrinos detection, which make it the ideal tool to unambiguously test the long-standing issue of the existence of a sterile neutrino, as suggested by several anomalies: the outputs of the LSND and Miniboone experiments, the results of the source calibration of the two Gallium solar ν experiments, and the recently hinted reactor anomaly. The SOX project will exploit two sources, based on chromium and cerium, which deployed under the experiment will emit two intense beams of ν e (Cr) and ν e ‾ (Ce). Interacting in the a…
Narrow Bound States of the DNN System
2012
We report on a recent calculation of the properties of the $DNN$ system, a charmed meson with two nucleons. The system is analogous to the $\bar K NN$ system substituting a strange quark by a charm quark. Two different methods are used to evaluate the binding and width, the Fixed Center approximation to the Faddeev equations and a variational calculation. In both methods we find that the system is bound by about 200 MeV and the width is smaller than 40 MeV, a situation opposite to the one of the $\bar K NN$ system and which makes this state well suited for experimental observation.
Flavour Separation of Helicity Distributions from Deep Inelastic Muon-Deuteron Scattering
2009
We present a LO evaluation of helicity densities of valence, \Delta u_v+\Delta d_v, non-strange sea, \Delta\bar{u}+\Delta\bar{d}, and strange quarks, \Delta s (assumed to be equal to \Delta\bar{s}). They have been obtained from the inclusive asymmetry A_{3,d} and the semi-inclusive asymmetries A^{\pi+}_{1,d}, A^{\pi-}_{1,d}, A^{K+}_{1,d}, A^{K-}_{1,d} measured in polarised deep inelastic muon-deuteron scattering. The full deuteron statistics of COMPASS (years 2002-2004 and 2006) has been used. The data cover the range Q^2 > 1 (GeV/c)^2 and 0.004<x<0.3. Both non-strange densities are found to be in a good agreement with previous measurements. The distribution of \Delta s(x) is compatible wit…