Improving LMA predictions with non-standard interactions: neutrino decay in solar matter?

It has been known for some time that the well established LMA solution to the observed solar neutrino deficit fails to predict a flat energy spectrum for SuperKamiokande as opposed to what the data indicates. It also leads to a Chlorine rate which appears to be too high as compared to the data. We investigate the possible solution to these inconsistencies with non standard neutrino interactions, assuming that they come as extra contributions to the $\nu_{\alpha}\nu_{\beta}$ and $\nu_{\alpha}e$ vertices that affect both the propagation of neutrinos in the sun and their detection. We find that, among the many possibilities for non standard couplings, only the diagonal imaginary ones lead to a solution to the tension between the LMA predictions and the data, implying neutrino instability in the solar matter. Unitarity requirements further restrict the solution and a neutrino decay into an antineutrino and a majoron within the sun is the one favoured. Antineutrino probability is however too small to open the possibility of experimentally observing antineutrinos from the sun due to NSI.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figures. Final version to be published in Physical Review

Improving LMA predictions with non standard interactions

It has been known for some time that the well established LMA solution to the observed solar neutrino deficit fails to predict a flat energy spectrum for SuperKamiokande as opposed to what the data indicates. It also leads to a Chlorine rate which appears to be too high as compared to the data. We investigate the possible solution to these inconsistencies with non standard neutrino interactions, assuming that they come as extra contributions to the $\nu_{\alpha}\nu_{\beta}$ and $\nu_{\alpha}e$ vertices that affect both the propagation of neutrinos through solar matter and their detection. We find that, among the many possibilities for non standard couplings, only one of them leads to a flat SuperKamiokande spectral rate in better agreement with the data and predicts a Chlorine rate within 1$\sigma$ of the observed one, while keeping all other predictions accurate

An empirical analysis of structural models of corporate debt pricing

This paper tests empirically the performance of three structural models of corporate bond pricing, namely Merton (1974), Leland (1994) and Fan and Sundaresan (2000). While the first two models overestimate bond prices, the Fan and Sundaresan model reveals an extremely good performance. When considering the prediction of credit spreads, the three models under-estimate market spreads but, again, Fan and Sundaresan has a better performance. We find rating, maturity and asset volatility effects in the prediction power, as the models under-estimate less the spreads of riskier firms and of bonds with better rating quality and longer maturity. Moreover, our results reveal the existence of a new industry effect. Spread errors are systematically related to some bond- and firm-specific variables, as well as term structure variables.structural models, corporate debt valuation, empirical credit spreads

Neutrino Mass Matrices with Vanishing Determinant and θ13\theta_{13}

We investigate the prospects for scenarios with vanishing determinant neutrino mass matrices and vanishing $\theta_{13}$ mixing angle. Normal and inverse mass hierarchies are considered separately. For normal hierarchy it is found that neutrinoless double beta decay cannot be observed by any of the present or next generation experiments. For inverse hierarchy the neutrinoless double beta decay is, on the contrary, accessible to experiments. We also analyse for both hierarchies the case for texture zeros and equalities between mass matrix elements. No texture zeros are found to be possible nor any such equalities, apart from the obvious ones.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figur