355 research outputs found
Dynamic magnetic properties of amorphous Fe80B20 thin films and their relation to interfaces
We present a ferromagnetic resonance study of the dynamic properties of a set of amorphous Fe-B films deposited on Corning Glass® and MgO (001) substrates, either with or without capping. We show that the in plane anisotropy of the MgO grown films contains both uniaxial and biaxial components whereas it is just uniaxial for those grown on glass. The angular dependence of the linewidth strongly differs in terms of symmetry and magnitude depending on the substrate and capping. We discuss the role of the interfaces on the magnetization damping and the generation of the anisotropy. We obtained values of the intrinsic damping parameters comparable to the lowest ones reported for amorphous films of similar compositions
MiniBooNE and LSND data: non-standard neutrino interactions in a (3+1) scheme versus (3+2) oscillations
The recently observed event excess in MiniBooNE anti-neutrino data is in
agreement with the LSND evidence for electron anti-neutrino appearance. We
propose an explanation of these data in terms of a (3+1) scheme with a sterile
neutrino including non-standard neutrino interactions (NSI) at neutrino
production and detection. The interference between oscillations and NSI
provides a source for CP violation which we use to reconcile different results
from neutrino and anti-neutrino data. Our best fit results imply NSI at the
level of a few percent relative to the standard weak interaction, in agreement
with current bounds. We compare the quality of the NSI fit to the one obtained
within the (3+1) and (3+2) pure oscillation frameworks. We also briefly comment
on using NSI (in an effective two-flavour framework) to address a possible
difference in neutrino and anti-neutrino results from the MINOS experiment.Comment: 28 pages, 9 figures, discussion improved, new appendix added,
conclusions unchange
Neutral-Current Atmospheric Neutrino Flux Measurement Using Neutrino-Proton Elastic Scattering in Super-Kamiokande
Recent results show that atmospheric oscillate with eV and , and that
conversion into is strongly disfavored. The Super-Kamiokande (SK)
collaboration, using a combination of three techniques, reports that their data
favor over . This distinction
is extremely important for both four-neutrino models and cosmology. We propose
that neutrino-proton elastic scattering () in water
\v{C}erenkov detectors can also distinguish between active and sterile
oscillations. This was not previously recognized as a useful channel since only
about 2% of struck protons are above the \v{C}erenkov threshold. Nevertheless,
in the present SK data there should be about 40 identifiable events. We show
that these events have unique particle identification characteristics, point in
the direction of the incoming neutrinos, and correspond to a narrow range of
neutrino energies (1-3 GeV, oscillating near the horizon). This channel will be
particularly important in Hyper-Kamiokande, with times higher rate.
Our results have other important applications. First, for a similarly small
fraction of atmospheric neutrino quasielastic events, the proton is
relativistic. This uniquely selects (not ) events,
useful for understanding matter effects, and allows determination of the
neutrino energy and direction, useful for the dependence of oscillations.
Second, using accelerator neutrinos, both elastic and quasielastic events with
relativistic protons can be seen in the K2K 1-kton near detector and MiniBooNE.Comment: 10 pages RevTeX, 8 figure
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
Indication for the disappearance of reactor electron antineutrinos in the Double Chooz experiment
The Double Chooz Experiment presents an indication of reactor electron
antineutrino disappearance consistent with neutrino oscillations. A ratio of
0.944 0.016 (stat) 0.040 (syst) observed to predicted events was
obtained in 101 days of running at the Chooz Nuclear Power Plant in France,
with two 4.25 GW reactors. The results were obtained from a single 10
m fiducial volume detector located 1050 m from the two reactor cores. The
reactor antineutrino flux prediction used the Bugey4 measurement as an anchor
point. The deficit can be interpreted as an indication of a non-zero value of
the still unmeasured neutrino mixing parameter \sang. Analyzing both the rate
of the prompt positrons and their energy spectrum we find \sang = 0.086
0.041 (stat) 0.030 (syst), or, at 90% CL, 0.015 \sang 0.16.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, (new version after PRL referee's comments
Light Sterile Neutrinos and Short Baseline Neutrino Oscillation Anomalies
We study two possible explanations for short baseline neutrino oscillation
anomalies, such as the LSND and MiniBooNE anti-neutrino data, and for the
reactor anomaly. The first scenario is the mini-seesaw mechanism with two
eV-scale sterile neutrinos. We present both analytic formulas and numerical
results showing that this scenario could account for the short baseline and
reactor anomalies and is consistent with the observed masses and mixings of the
three active neutrinos. We also show that this scenario could arise naturally
from an effective theory containing a TeV-scale VEV, which could be related to
other TeV-scale physics. The minimal version of the mini-seesaw relates the
active-sterile mixings to five real parameters and favors an inverted
hierarchy. It has the interesting property that the effective Majorana mass for
neutrinoless double beta decay vanishes, while the effective masses relevant to
tritium beta decay and to cosmology are respectively around 0.2 and 2.4 eV. The
second scenario contains only one eV-scale sterile neutrino but with an
effective non-unitary mixing matrix between the light sterile and active
neutrinos. We find that though this may explain the anomalies, if the
non-unitarity originates from a heavy sterile neutrino with a large
(fine-tuned) mixing angle, this scenario is highly constrained by cosmological
and laboratory observations.Comment: 25 pages, 6 figure
TeV gamma-rays and neutrinos from photo-disintegration of nuclei in Cygnus OB2
TeV gamma-rays may provide significant information about high energy
astrophysical accelerators. Such gamma-rays can result from the
photo-de-excitation of PeV nuclei after their parents have undergone
photo-disintegration in an environment of ultraviolet photons. This process is
proposed as a candidate explanation of the recently discovered HEGRA source at
the edge of the Cygnus OB2 association. The Lyman-alpha background is provided
by the rich O and B stellar environment. It is found that (1) the HEGRA flux
can be obtained if there is efficient acceleration at the source of lower
energy nuclei; (2) the requirement that the Lorentz-boosted ultraviolet photons
can excite the Giant Dipole resonance implies a strong suppression of the
gamma-ray spectrum compared to an E_\gamma^{-2} behavior at energies \alt 1 TeV
(some of these energies will be probed by the upcoming GLAST mission); (3) a
TeV neutrino counterpart from neutron decay following helium
photo-disintegration will be observed at IceCube only if a major proportion of
the kinetic energy budget of the Cygnus OB2 association is expended in
accelerating nuclei.Comment: To be published in Phys. Rev.
Novel event classification based on spectral analysis of scintillation waveforms in Double Chooz
Liquid scintillators are a common choice for neutrino physics experiments, but their capabilities to perform background rejection by scintillation pulse shape discrimination is generally limited in large detectors. This paper describes a novel approach for a pulse shape based event classification developed in the context of the Double Chooz reactor antineutrino experiment. Unlike previous implementations, this method uses the Fourier power spectra of the scintillation pulse shapes to obtain event-wise information. A classification variable built from spectral information was able to achieve an unprecedented performance, despite the lack of optimization at the detector design level. Several examples of event classification are provided, ranging from differentiation between the detector volumes and an efficient rejection of instrumental light noise, to some sensitivity to the particle type, such as stopping muons, ortho-positronium formation, alpha particles as well as electrons and positrons. In combination with other techniques the method is expected to allow for a versatile and more efficient background rejection in the future, especially if detector optimization is taken into account at the design level
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