157 research outputs found
Analysis and packaging of radiochemical solar neutrino data. 1. Bayesian approach
According to current practice, the results of each run of a radiochemical
solar neutrino experiment comprise an estimate of the flux and upper and lower
error estimates. These estimates are derived by a maximum-likelihood procedure
from the times of decay events in the analysis chamber. This procedure has the
following shortcomings: (a) Published results sometimes include negative flux
estimates. (b) Even if the flux estimate is non-negative, the probability
distribution function implied by the flux and error estimates will extend into
negative territory; and (c) The overall flux estimate derived from the results
of a sequence of runs may differ substantially from an estimate made by a
global analysis of all of the timing data taken together. These defects
indicate that the usual packaging of data in radiochemical solar neutrino
experiments provides an inadequate summary of the data, which implies a loss of
information. This article reviews this problem from a Bayesian perspective, and
suggests an alternative scheme for the packaging of radiochemical solar
neutrino data, which is we believe free from the above objections.Comment: 8 page
Violation of the Equivalence Principle in the light of the SNO and SK solar neutrino results
The SNO result on charged current deuteron disintegration, the
SuperKamiokande 1258-day data on electron scattering, and other solar neutrino
results are used to revisit the model of neutrino oscillations driven by a
violation of the equivalence principle. We use a chisq minimization technique
to examine oscillation between the nu(e) and another active neutrino, both
massless, and find that within the Standard Solar Model the fit to the SNO and
SuperKamiokande spectra are moderately good while a very good fit is obtained
when the absolute normalizations of the 8B and hep neutrino fluxes are allowed
to vary. The best fit prefers large, but not maximal, mixing, essentially no
hep neutrinos, and a 40% reduction in the 8B neutrino flux. The fit to the
total rates from the different experiments is not encouraging but when the
rates and spectra are considerd together the situation is much improved. We
remark on the expectations of the VEP model for the neutral current
measurements at SNO.Comment: Latex, 11 pages (incl. 1 postscript figure
High sensitivity measurement of 224Ra and 226Ra in water with an improved hydrous titanium oxide technique at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory
The existing hydrous titanium oxide (HTiO) technique for the measurement of
224Ra and 226Ra in the water at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) has been
changed to make it faster and less sensitive to trace impurities in the HTiO
eluate. Using HTiO-loaded filters followed by cation exchange adsorption and
HTiO co-precipitation, Ra isotopes from 200-450 tonnes of heavy water can be
extracted and concentrated into a single sample of a few millilitres with a
total chemical efficiency of 50%. Combined with beta-alpha coincidence
counting, this method is capable of measuring 2.0x10^3 uBq/kg of 224Ra and
3.7x10^3 uBq/kg of 226Ra from the 232Th and 238U decay chains, respectively,
for a 275 tonne D2O assay, which are equivalent to 5x10^16 g Th/g and 3x10^16 g
U/g in heavy water.Comment: 8 Pages, 2 figures and 2 table
Implications of recent solar neutrino observations: an analysis of charged current data
We have analysed the recent results from the observation of charged current
\nu_e d \to e^- p p events from solar neutrinos by the Sudbury Neutrino
Observatory SNO assuming neutrino oscillations with three active flavours. The
data seem to prefer a low mass-squared difference and large mixing angle
solution (the so-called LOW solution) in (12) parameter space. However, when
combined with the Gallium charged current interaction data from Gallex and GNO,
distinct (1\sigma) allowed regions corresponding to the large mixing angle
(LMA) and small mixing angle (SMA) appear while the LOW solution is disfavoured
upto 3\sigma standard deviation. The physical electron neutrino survival
probability corresponding to these best fit solutions are then determined and
analysed for their energy dependence.Comment: 16 pages Latex file, with 5 epsf figures; one reference adde
Four methods for determining the composition of trace radioactive surface contamination of low-radioactivity metal
Four methods for determining the composition of low-level uranium- and
thorium-chain surface contamination are presented. One method is the
observation of Cherenkov light production in water. In two additional methods a
position-sensitive proportional counter surrounding the surface is used to make
both a measurement of the energy spectrum of alpha particle emissions and also
coincidence measurements to derive the thorium-chain content based on the
presence of short-lived isotopes in that decay chain. The fourth method is a
radiochemical technique in which the surface is eluted with a weak acid, the
eluate is concentrated, added to liquid scintillator and assayed by recording
beta-alpha coincidences. These methods were used to characterize two `hotspots'
on the outer surface of one of the He-3 proportional counters in the Neutral
Current Detection array of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory experiment. The
methods have similar sensitivities, of order tens of ng, to both thorium- and
uranium-chain contamination.Comment: 22 pages, 19 figure
Symplectic Symmetry of the Neutrino Mass and the See-Saw Mechanism
We investigate the algebraic structure of the most general neutrino mass
Hamiltonian and place the see-saw mechanism in an algebraic framework. We show
that this Hamiltonian can be written in terms of the generators of an Sp(4)
algebra. The Pauli-Gursey transformation is an SU(2) rotation which is embedded
in this Sp(4) group. This SU(2) also generates the see-saw mechanism.Comment: 11 pages, REVTE
Constraints on Neutrino Parameters from Neutral-Current Solar Neutrino Measurements
We generalize the pull approach to define the function to the
analysis of the data with correlated statistical errors. We apply this method
to the analysis of the Sudbury Neutrino Collaboration data obtained in the
salt-phase. In the global analysis of all the solar neutrino and KamLAND data
we find the best fit (minimum ) values of neutrino parameters to be
and
eV. We confirm that the maximal mixing is strongly disfavored while the
bounds on are significantly strengthened.Comment: 6 figures. Some typos are corrected, figures are visually improve
Approximate Treatment of Lepton Distortion in Charged-Current Neutrino Scattering from Nuclei
The partial-wave expansion used to treat the distortion of scattered
electrons by the nuclear Coulomb field is simpler and considerably less
time-consuming when applied to the production of muons and electrons by low and
intermediate-energy neutrinos. For angle-integrated cross sections, however, a
modification of the "effective-momentum-transfer" approximation seems to work
so well that for muons the full distorted-wave treatment is usually
unnecessary, even at kinetic energies as low as an MeV and in nuclei as heavy
as lead. The method does not work as well for electron production at low
energies, but there a Fermi function usually proves adequate. Scattering of
electron-neutrinos from muon decay on iodine and of atmospheric neutrinos on
iron are discussed in light of these results.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX, submitted to Phys. Rev.
First hint for CP violation in neutrino oscillations from upcoming superbeam and reactor experiments
We compare the physics potential of the upcoming neutrino oscillation
experiments Daya Bay, Double Chooz, NOvA, RENO, and T2K based on their
anticipated nominal luminosities and schedules. After discussing the
sensitivity to theta_{13} and the leading atmospheric parameters, we
demonstrate that leptonic CP violation will hardly be measurable without
upgrades of the T2K and NOvA proton drivers, even if theta_{13} is large. In
the presence of the proton drivers, the fast track to hints for CP violation
requires communication between the T2K and NOvA collaborations in terms of a
mutual synchronization of their neutrino-antineutrino run plans. Even in that
case, upgrades will only discover CP violation in a relatively small part of
the parameter space at the 3 sigma confidence level, while 90% confidence level
hints will most likely be obtained. Therefore, we conclude that a new facility
will be required if the goal is to obtain a significant result with high
probability.Comment: 27 pages, 12 figure
Ultra-high neutrino fluxes as a probe for non-standard physics
We examine how light neutrinos coming from distant active galactic nuclei
(AGN) and similar high energy sources may be used as tools to probe
non-standard physics. In particular we discuss how studying the energy spectra
of each neutrino flavour coming from such distant sources and their distortion
relative to each other may serve as pointers to exotic physics such as neutrino
decay, Lorentz symmetry violation, pseudo-Dirac effects, CP and CPT violation
and quantum decoherence. This allows us to probe hitherto unexplored ranges of
parameters for the above cases, for example lifetimes in the range s/eV for the case of neutrino decay. We show that standard
neutrino oscillations ensure that the different flavours arrive at the earth
with similar shapes even if their flavour spectra at source may differ strongly
in both shape and magnitude. As a result, observed differences between the
spectra of various flavours at the detector would be signatures of non-standard
physics altering neutrino fluxes during propagation rather than those arising
during their production at source. Since detection of ultra-high energy (UHE)
neutrinos is perhaps imminent, it is possible that such differences in spectral
shapes will be tested in neutrino detectors in the near future. To that end,
using the IceCube detector as an example, we show how our results translate to
observable shower and muon-track event rates.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure
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