Corrections to the fluxes of a Neutrino Factory

In view of their physics goals, future neutrino factories from muon decay aim at an overall flux precision of ${\cal O}(1$ or better. We analytically study the QED radiative corrections to the neutrino differential distributions from muon decay. Kinematic uncertainties due to the divergence of the muon beam are considered as well. The resulting corrections to the neutrino flux turn out to be of order ${\cal O}(0.1$, safely below the required precision.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures. Some references changed. Final version accepted for publication in EPJ

Renormalization of Lepton Mixing for Majorana Neutrinos

We discuss the one-loop electroweak renormalization of the leptonic mixing matrix in the case of Majorana neutrinos, and establish its relationship with the renormalization group evolution of the dimension five operator responsible for the light Majorana neutrino masses. We compare our results in the effective theory with those in the full seesaw theory.Comment: 28 pages. With axodra

Leptogenesis and μ−τ\mu-\tau symmetry

If an exact $\mu\leftrightarrow \tau$ symmetry is the explanation of the maximal atmospheric neutrino mixing angle, it has interesting implications for origin of matter via leptogenesis in models where small neutrino masses arise via the seesaw mechanism. For seesaw models with two right handed neutrinos $(N_\mu, N_\tau)$, lepton asymmetry vanishes in the exact $\mu\leftrightarrow \tau$ symmetric limit, even though there are nonvanishing Majorana phases in the neutrino mixing matrix. On the other hand, for three right handed neutrino models, lepton asymmetry nonzero and is given directly by the solar mass difference square. We also find an upper bound on the lightest neutrino mass.Comment: 5 pages; latex; no figures; some typos correcte

Unveiling Neutrino Mixing and Leptonic CP Violation

We review the present understanding of neutrino masses and mixings, discussing what are the unknowns in the three family oscillation scenario. Despite the anticipated success coming from the planned long baseline neutrino experiments in unraveling the leptonic mixing sector, there are two important unknowns which may remain obscure: the mixing angle $\theta_{13}$ and the CP-phase $\delta$. The measurement of these two parameters has led us to consider the combination of superbeams and neutrino factories as the key to unveil the neutrino oscillation picture.Comment: Invited brief review, 18 pages, 6 figure

Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) and positron emission tomography (PET) imaging in the diagnosis and follow-up of patients with acute myocarditis and chronic inflammatory cardiomyopathy : A review paper with practical recommendations on behalf of the European Society of Cardiovascular Radiology (ESCR).

Advanced cardiac imaging techniques such as cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) and positron emission tomography (PET) are widely used in clinical practice in patients with acute myocarditis and chronic inflammatory cardiomyopathies (I-CMP). We aimed to provide a review article with practical recommendations from the European Society of Cardiovascular Radiology (ESCR), in order to guide physicians in the use and interpretation of CMR and PET in clinical practice both for acute myocarditis and follow-up in chronic forms of I-CMP

Phenomenology of symmetry breaking from extra dimensions

Motivated by the electroweak hierarchy problem, we consider theories with two extra dimensions in which the four-dimensional scalar fields are components of gauge boson in full space. We explore the Nielsen-Olesen instability for SU(N) on a torus, in the presence of a magnetic background. A field theory approach is developed, computing explicitly the minimum of the complete effective potential, including tri-linear and quartic couplings and determining the symmetries of the stable vacua. We also develop appropriate gauge-fixing terms when both Kaluza-Klein and Landau levels are present and interacting, discussing the interplay between the possible six and four dimensional choices. The equivalence between coordinate dependent and constant Scherk-Schwarz boundary conditions -associated to either continuous or discrete Wilson lines- is analyzed.Comment: 39 pages and 8 eps figures. Few changes in section

Non-unitary Leptonic Mixing and Leptogenesis

We investigate the relation between non-unitarity of the leptonic mixing matrix and leptogenesis. We discuss how all parameters of the canonical type-I seesaw mechanism can, in principle, be reconstructed from the neutrino mass matrix and the deviation of the effective low-energy leptonic mixing matrix from unitary. When the mass M' of the lightest right-handed neutrino is much lighter than the masses of the others, we show that its decay asymmetries within flavour-dependent leptogenesis can be expressed in terms of two contributions, one depending on the unique dimension five (d=5) operator generating neutrino masses and one depending on the dimension six (d=6) operator associated with non-unitarity. In low-energy seesaw scenarios where small lepton number violation explains the smallness of neutrino masses, the lepton number conserving d=6 operator contribution generically dominates over the d=5 operator contribution which results in a strong enhancement of the flavour-dependent decay asymmetries without any resonance effects. To calculate the produced final baryon asymmetry, the flavour equilibration effects directly related to non-unitarity have to be taken into account. In a simple realization of this non-unitarity driven leptogenesis, the lower bound on M' is found to be about 10^8 GeV at the onset of the strong washout regime, more than one order of magnitude below the bound in "standard" thermal leptogenesis.Comment: 19 pages, REVTeX4, 2 eps and 2 axodraw figure

New physics searches at near detectors of neutrino oscillation experiments

We systematically investigate the prospects of testing new physics with tau sensitive near detectors at neutrino oscillation facilities. For neutrino beams from pion decay, from the decay of radiative ions, as well as from the decays of muons in a storage ring at a neutrino factory, we discuss which effective operators can lead to new physics effects. Furthermore, we discuss the present bounds on such operators set by other experimental data currently available. For operators with two leptons and two quarks we present the first complete analysis including all relevant operators simultaneously and performing a Markov Chain Monte Carlo fit to the data. We find that these effects can induce tau neutrino appearance probabilities as large as O(10^{-4}), which are within reach of forthcoming experiments. We highlight to which kind of new physics a tau sensitive near detector would be most sensitive.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures, REVTeX