Physics Reach with a Monochromatic Neutrino Beam from Electron Capture

Neutrino oscillation experiments from different sources have demonstrated non-vanishing neutrino masses and flavour mixings. The next experiments have to address the determination of the connecting mixing U(e3) and the existence of the CP violating phase. Whereas U(e3) measures the strength of the oscillation probability in appearance experiments, the CP phase acts as a phase-shift in the interference pattern. Here we propose to separate these two parameters by energy dependence, using the novel idea of a monochromatic neutrino beam facility based on the acceleration of ions that decay fast through electron capture. Fine tuning of the boosted neutrino energy allows precision measurements able to open a window for the discovery of CP violation, even for a mixing as small as 1 degree.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. Talk given at the International Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics, HEP-EPS 2005, Lisbon, Portugal, July 21-27, 200

Perspectives in Neutrino Physics: Monochromatic Neutrino Beams

In the last few years spectacular results have been achieved with the demonstration of non vanishing neutrino masses and flavour mixing. The ultimate goal is the understanding of the origin of these properties from new physics. In this road, the last unknown mixing $[U_{e3}]$ must be determined. If it is proved to be non-zero, the possibility is open for Charge Conjugation-Parity (CP) violation in the lepton sector. This will require precision experiments with a very intense neutrino source. Here a novel method to create a monochromatic neutrino beam, an old dream for neutrino physics, is proposed based on the recent discovery of nuclei that decay fast through electron capture. Such nuclei will generate a monochromatic directional neutrino beam when decaying at high energy in a storage ring with long straight sections. We also show that the capacity of such a facility to discover new physics is impressive, so that fine tuning of the boosted neutrino energy allows precision measurements of the oscillation parameters even for a $[U_{e3}]$ mixing as small as 1 degree. We can thus open a window to the discovery of CP violation in neutrino oscillations.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures. Contribution to the proceedings of GUSTAVOFEST - Symposium in Honour of Gustavo C. Branco: CP Violation and the Flavour Puzzle, Lisbon, Portugal, 19-20 July 200

Physics Reach of Electron-Capture Neutrino Beams

To complete the picture of neutrino oscillations two fundamental parameters need to be measured, theta13 and delta. The next generation of long baseline neutrino oscillation experiments -superbeams, betabeams and neutrino factories- indeed take aim at measuring them. Here we explore the physics reach of a new candidate: an electron-capture neutrino beam. Emphasis is made on its feasibility thanks to the recent discovery of nuclei that decay fast through electron capture, and on the interplay with a betabeam (its closest relative).Comment: 5 pages, 3 png figures. Talk given at the 7th International Workshop on Neutrino Factories and Superbeams (NuFact 05), Frascati, Italy, June 200

Neutrino-nucleus interaction rates at a low-energy beta-beam facility

We compute the neutrino detection rates to be expected at a low-energy beta-beam facility. We consider various nuclei as neutrino detectors and compare the case of a small versus large storage ring.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Reconstructing the calibrated strain signal in the Advanced LIGO detectors

Advanced LIGO's raw detector output needs to be calibrated to compute dimensionless strain h(t). Calibrated strain data is produced in the time domain using both a low-latency, online procedure and a high-latency, offline procedure. The low-latency h(t) data stream is produced in two stages, the first of which is performed on the same computers that operate the detector's feedback control system. This stage, referred to as the front-end calibration, uses infinite impulse response (IIR) filtering and performs all operations at a 16384 Hz digital sampling rate. Due to several limitations, this procedure currently introduces certain systematic errors in the calibrated strain data, motivating the second stage of the low-latency procedure, known as the low-latency gstlal calibration pipeline. The gstlal calibration pipeline uses finite impulse response (FIR) filtering to apply corrections to the output of the front-end calibration. It applies time-dependent correction factors to the sensing and actuation components of the calibrated strain to reduce systematic errors. The gstlal calibration pipeline is also used in high latency to recalibrate the data, which is necessary due mainly to online dropouts in the calibrated data and identified improvements to the calibration models or filters.Comment: 20 pages including appendices and bibliography. 11 Figures. 3 Table

Topical Review on "Beta-beams"

Neutrino physics is traversing an exciting period, after the important discovery that neutrinos are massive particles, that has implications from high-energy physics to cosmology. A new method for the production of intense and pure neutrino beams has been proposed recently: the ``beta-beam''. It exploits boosted radioactive ions decaying through beta-decay. This novel concept has been the starting point for a new possible future facility. Its main goal is to address the crucial issue of the existence of CP violation in the lepton sector. Here we review the status and the recent developments with beta-beams. We discuss the original, the medium and high-energy scenarios as well as mono-chromatic neutrino beams produced through ion electron-capture. The issue of the degeneracies is mentioned. An overview of low energy beta-beams is also presented. These beams can be used to perform experiments of interest for nuclear structure, for the study of fundamental interactions and for nuclear astrophysics.Comment: Topical Review for Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics, published version, minor corrections, references adde

Neutrino physics at accelerators

Present and future neutrino experiments at accelerators are mainly concerned with understanding the neutrino oscillation phenomenon and its implications. Here a brief account of neutrino oscillations is given together with a description of the supporting data. Some current and planned accelerator neutrino experiments are also explained.Comment: 23 pages, 24 figures. Talk given at the Corfu Summer Institute on Elementary Particle Physics 200

New CP Violation in Neutrino Oscillations

Measurements of CP--violating observables in neutrino oscillation experiments have been studied in the literature as a way to determine the CP--violating phase in the mixing matrix for leptons. Here we show that such observables also probe new neutrino interactions in the production or detection processes. Genuine CP violation and fake CP violation due to matter effects are sensitive to the imaginary and real parts of new couplings. The dependence of the CP asymmetry on source--detector distance is different from the standard one and, in particular, enhanced at short distances. We estimate that future neutrino factories will be able to probe in this way new interactions that are up to four orders of magnitude weaker than the weak interactions. We discuss the possible implications for models of new physics.Comment: ReVTeX, 28 pages, 7 figues. v2: Modifications in section VIII to reflect the fact that some of the couplings that were discussed in this section are irrelevant to our analysis (as pointed out in hep-ph/0112329); Added a discussion in section IX of the relevance of other future experiments that will search for lepton flavor violatio

Neutrino tomography - Learning about the Earth's interior using the propagation of neutrinos

Because the propagation of neutrinos is affected by the presence of Earth matter, it opens new possibilities to probe the Earth's interior. Different approaches range from techniques based upon the interaction of high energy (above TeV) neutrinos with Earth matter, to methods using the MSW effect on the neutrino oscillations of low energy (MeV to GeV) neutrinos. In principle, neutrinos from many different sources (sun, atmosphere, supernovae, beams etc.) can be used. In this talk, we summarize and compare different approaches with an emphasis on more recent developments. In addition, we point out other geophysical aspects relevant for neutrino oscillations.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures. Proceedings of ``Neutrino sciences 2005: Neutrino geophysics'', December 14-16, 2005, Honolulu, USA. Minor changes, some references added. Final version to appear in Earth, Moon, and Planet

Precision on leptonic mixing parameters at future neutrino oscillation experiments

We perform a comparison of the different future neutrino oscillation experiments based on the achievable precision in the determination of the fundamental parameters theta_{13} and the CP phase, delta, assuming that theta_{13} is in the range indicated by the recent Daya Bay measurement. We study the non-trivial dependence of the error on delta on its true value. When matter effects are small, the largest error is found at the points where CP violation is maximal, and the smallest at the CP conserving points. The situation is different when matter effects are sizable. As a result of this effect, the comparison of the physics reach of different experiments on the basis of the CP discovery potential, as usually done, can be misleading. We have compared various proposed super-beam, beta-beam and neutrino factory setups on the basis of the relative precision of theta_{13} and the error on delta. Neutrino factories, both high-energy or low-energy, outperform alternative beam technologies. An ultimate precision on theta_{13} below 3% and an error on delta of < 7^{\circ} at 1 sigma (1 d.o.f.) can be obtained at a neutrino factory.Comment: Minor changes, matches version accepted in JHEP. 30 pages, 9 figure