156 research outputs found
Solar Neutrinos and the Violation of Equivalence Principle
In this Brief Report, a non-standard solution to the solar neutrino problem
is revisited. This solution assumes that neutrino flavors could have different
couplings to gravity, hence, the equivalence principle is violated in this
mechanism. The gravity induced mixing has the potential of accounting for the
current solar neutrino data from several experiments even for massless
neutrinos. We fit this solution to the total rate of neutrino events in the
SuperKamiokande detector together with the total rate from other detectors and
also with the most recent results of the SuperKamiokande results for the
recoil-electron spectrum.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys.Rev.
Pulsar velocities due to a violation of the equivalence principle by neutrinos
We consider the pulsar velocity problem and relate it to some unconventional
neutrino oscillation mechanisms based on a violation of the equivalence
principle by neutrinos. We show that the observed pulsar velocities may be
explained by violations at the level from 10^{-9} to 10^{-10} in the case of a
non-universal tensor neutrino-gravity coupling, whereas there is no solution in
the case of a non-universal scalar neutrino-gravity coupling. Neutrinos may
remain massless and the requisite magnetic field strength is similar to that in
the conventional mass oscillation mechanism.Comment: 6 pages, minor changes, to appear in Mod. Phys. Let
The NuTeV Anomaly, Lepton Universality, and Non-Universal Neutrino-Gauge Couplings
In previous studies we found that models with flavor-universal suppression of
the neutrino-gauge couplings are compatible with NuTeV and Z-pole data. In this
paper we expand our analysis to obtain constraints on flavor-dependent coupling
suppression by including lepton universality data from W, tau, pi and K decays
in fits to model parameters. We find that the data are consistent with a
variety of patterns of coupling suppression. In particular, in scenarios in
which the suppression arises from the mixing of light neutrinos with heavy
gauge singlet states (neutrissimos), we find patterns of flavor-dependent
coupling suppression which are also consistent with constraints from mu -> e
gamma.Comment: REVTeX4, 25 pages, 10 postscript figures. Updated fits using the new
top mass. Updated figures. Extended discussion on the status of the
determination of B(tau->pi nu
Neutrino Anomalies without Oscillations
I review explanations for the three neutrino anomalies (solar, atmospheric
and LSND) which go beyond the ``conventional'' neutrino oscillations induced by
mass-mixing. Several of these require non-zero neutrino masses as well.Comment: 14pages, LATEX format, 3 figure
Improved limits on nuebar emission from mu+ decay
We investigated mu+ decays at rest produced at the ISIS beam stop target.
Lepton flavor (LF) conservation has been tested by searching for \nueb via the
detection reaction p(\nueb,e+)n. No \nueb signal from LF violating mu+ decays
was identified. We extract upper limits of the branching ratio for the LF
violating decay mu+ -> e+ \nueb \nu compared to the Standard Model (SM) mu+ ->
e+ nue numub decay: BR < 0.9(1.7)x10^{-3} (90%CL) depending on the spectral
distribution of \nueb characterized by the Michel parameter rho=0.75 (0.0).
These results improve earlier limits by one order of magnitude and restrict
extensions of the SM in which \nueb emission from mu+ decay is allowed with
considerable strength. The decay \mupdeb as source for the \nueb signal
observed in the LSND experiment can be excluded.Comment: 10 pages, including 1 figure, 1 tabl
Atmospheric Neutrino Oscillations and New Physics
We study the robustness of the determination of the neutrino masses and
mixing from the analysis of atmospheric and K2K data under the presence of
different forms of phenomenologically allowed new physics in the nu_mu--nu_tau
sector. We focus on vector and tensor-like new physics interactions which allow
us to treat, in a model independent way, effects due to the violation of the
equivalence principle, violations of the Lorentz invariance both CPT conserving
and CPT violating, non-universal couplings to a torsion field and non-standard
neutrino interactions with matter. We perform a global analysis of the full
atmospheric data from SKI together with long baseline K2K data in the presence
of nu_mu -> nu_tau transitions driven by neutrino masses and mixing together
with sub-dominant effects due to these forms of new physics. We show that
within the present degree of experimental precision, the extracted values of
masses and mixing are robust under those effects and we derive the upper bounds
on the possible strength of these new interactions in the nu_mu--nu_tau sector.Comment: 22 pages, LaTeX file using RevTEX4, 5 figures and 4 tables include
Photon-Neutrino Interactions in Magnetic Field through Neutrino Magnetic Moment
We study the neutrino-photon processes like in
the presence of uniform external magnetic field for the case when neutrinos can
couple to the electromagnetic field directly through their dipole magnetic
moment and obtain the stellar energy loss. The process would be of special
relevance in astrophysical situations where standard left-handed neutrinos are
trapped and the right handed neutrinos produced through the spin flip
interaction induced by neutrino magnetic moment alone can freely stream out.Comment: LaTex2e file, 9 page
Can lepton flavor violating interactions explain the LSND results?
If the atmospheric and the solar neutrino problem are both explained by
neutrino oscillations, and if there are only three light neutrinos, then all
mass-squared differences between the neutrinos are known. In such a case,
existing terrestrial neutrino oscillation experiments cannot be significantly
affected by neutrino oscillations, but, in principle there could be an anomaly
in the neutrino flux due to new neutrino interactions. We discuss how a
non-standard muon decay would modify the
neutrino production processes of these experiments. Since violation
is small for New Physics above the weak scale one can use related
flavor-violating charged lepton processes to constrain these decays in a model
independent way. We show that the upper bounds on ,
muonium-antimuonium conversion and rule out any observable
effect for the present experiments due to
for , respectively. Applying similar arguments to
flavor-changing semi-leptonic reactions we exclude the possibility that the
"oscillation signals" observed at LSND are due to flavor-changing interactions
that conserve total lepton number.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, Latex; minor correction
Quantum field theoretic approach to neutrino oscillations in matter
We consider neutrino oscillations in non-uniform matter in a quantum field
theoretic (QFT) approach, in which neutrino production, propagation and
detection are considered as a single process. We find the conditions under
which the oscillation probability can be sensibly defined and demonstrate how
the properly normalized oscillation probability can be obtained in the QFT
framework. We derive the evolution equation for the oscillation amplitude and
discuss the conditions under which it reduces to the standard
Schr\"odinger-like evolution equation. It is shown that, contrary to the common
usage, the Schr\"odinger-like evolution equation is not applicable in certain
cases, such as oscillations of neutrinos produced in decays of free pions
provided that sterile neutrinos with eV exist.Comment: LaTeX, 24 pages + 16 pages of appendices, 1 figure. V2: typos
correcte
Testing the Principle of Equivalence by Solar Neutrinos
We discuss the possibility of testing the principle of equivalence with solar
neutrinos. If there exists a violation of the equivalence principle quarks and
leptons with different flavors may not universally couple with gravity. The
method we discuss employs a quantum mechanical phenomenon of neutrino
oscillation to probe into the non-universality of the gravitational couplings
of neutrinos. We develop an appropriate formalism to deal with neutrino
propagation under the weak gravitational fields of the sun in the presence of
the flavor mixing. We point out that solar neutrino observation by the next
generation water Cherenkov detectors can improve the existing bound on
violation of the equivalence principle by 3-4 orders of magnitude if the
nonadiabatic Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein mechanism is the solution to the
solar neutrino problem.Comment: Latex, 17 pages + 6 uuencoded postscript figures, KEK-TH-396,
TMUP-HEL-9402 (unnecessary one reference was removed
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