148 research outputs found
Neutrino Observatories Can Characterize Cosmic Sources and Neutrino Properties
Neutrino telescopes that measure relative fluxes of ultrahigh-energy
can give information about the location and
characteristics of sources, about neutrino mixing, and can test for neutrino
instability and for departures from CPT invariance in the neutrino sector. We
investigate consequences of neutrino mixing for the neutrino flux arriving at
Earth, and consider how terrestrial measurements can characterize distant
sources. We contrast mixtures that arise from neutrino oscillations with those
signaling neutrino decays. We stress the importance of measuring fluxes in neutrino observatories.Comment: 9 RevTeX pages, 4 figure
Enhanced signal of astrophysical tau neutrinos propagating through Earth
Earth absorbs \nue and \numu of energies above about 100 TeV. As is
well-known, although \nutau will also disappear through charged-current
interactions, the \nutau flux will be regenerated by prompt tau decays. We
show that this process also produces relatively large fluxes of secondary
\nube and \nubmu, greatly enhancing the detectability of the initial
\nutau. This is particularly important because at these energies \nutau is
a significant fraction of the expected astrophysical neutrino flux, and only a
tiny portion of the atmospheric neutrino flux.Comment: Four pages, two inline figure
Neutrino Decay and Atmospheric Neutrinos
We reconsider neutrino decay as an explanation for atmospheric neutrino
observations. We show that if the mass-difference relevant to the two mixed
states \nu_\mu and \nu_\tau is very small (< 10^{-4} eV^2), then a very good
fit to the observations can be obtained with decay of a component of \nu_\mu to
a sterile neutrino and a Majoron. We discuss how the K2K and MINOS
long-baseline experiments can distinguish the decay and oscillation scenarios.Comment: 9 pages, Revtex, uses epsf.sty, 3 postscript figures. Additions and
corrections to references, minor changes in the text and to some number
Effects of quantum space time foam in the neutrino sector
We discuss violations of CPT and quantum mechanics due to interactions of
neutrinos with space-time quantum foam. Neutrinoless double beta decay and
oscillations of neutrinos from astrophysical sources (supernovae, active
galactic nuclei) are analysed. It is found that the propagation distance is the
crucial quantity entering any bounds on EHNS parameters. Thus, while the bounds
from neutrinoless double beta decay are not significant, the data of the
supernova 1987a imply a bound being several orders of magnitude more stringent
than the ones known from the literature. Even more stringent limits may be
obtained from the investigation of neutrino oscillations from active galactic
nuclei sources, which have an impressive potential for the search of quantum
foam interactions in the neutrino sector.Comment: 5 page
Prospects for observations of high-energy cosmic tau neutrinos
We study prospects for the observations of high-energy cosmic tau neutrinos
(E \geq 10^6 GeV) originating from proton acceleration in the cores of active
galactic nuclei. We consider the possibility that vacuum flavor neutrino
oscillations induce a tau to muon neutrino flux ratio greatly exceeding the
rather small value expected from intrinsic production. The criterias and event
rates for under water/ice light Cerenkov neutrino telescopes are given by
considering the possible detection of downgoing high-energy cosmic tau
neutrinos through characteristic double shower events.Comment: 10 pages, Revtex, 3 figures included with eps
Remote reactor ranging via antineutrino oscillations
Antineutrinos from nuclear reactors can be used for monitoring in the mid- to far-field as part of a non-proliferation toolkit. Antineutrinos are an unshieldable signal and carry information about the reactor core and the distance they travel.
Using gadolinium-doped water Cherenkov detectors for this purpose has been previously proposed alongside rate-only analyses. As antineutrinos carry information about their distance of travel in their energy spectrum, the analyses can be extended to a spectral analysis to gain more knowledge about the detected core.
Two complementary analyses are used to evaluate the distance between a proposed gadolinium-doped water-based liquid scintillator detector and a detected nuclear reactor. Example cases are shown for a detector in Boulby Mine, near the Boulby Underground Laboratory in the UK, and six reactor sites in the UK and France. The analyses both show strong potential to range reactors, but are limited by the detector design
Measuring the Spectra of High Energy Neutrinos with a Kilometer-Scale Neutrino Telescope
We investigate the potential of a future kilometer-scale neutrino telescope
such as the proposed IceCube detector in the South Pole, to measure and
disentangle the yet unknown components of the cosmic neutrino flux, the prompt
atmospheric neutrinos coming from the decay of charmed particles and the
extra-galactic neutrinos, in the 10 TeV to 1 EeV energy range.
Assuming a power law type spectra,
, we quantify the discriminating
power of the IceCube detector and discuss how well we can determine magnitude
() as well as slope () of these two components of the high
energy neutrino spectrum, taking into account the background coming from the
conventional atmospheric neutrinos.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figure
Cosmic Neutrinos and the Energy Budget of Galactic and Extragalactic Cosmic Rays
Although kilometer-scale neutrino detectors such as IceCube are discovery
instruments, their conceptual design is very much anchored to the observational
fact that Nature produces protons and photons with energies in excess of
10^{20} eV and 10^{13} eV, respectively. The puzzle of where and how Nature
accelerates the highest energy cosmic particles is unresolved almost a century
after their discovery. We will discuss how the cosmic ray connection sets the
scale of the anticipated cosmic neutrino fluxes. In this context, we discuss
the first results of the completed AMANDA detector and the science reach of its
extension, IceCube.Comment: 13 pages, Latex2e, 3 postscript figures included. Talk presented at
the International Workshop on Energy Budget in the High Energy Universe,
Kashiwa, Japan, February 200
Neutrino Telescopes' Sensitivity to Dark Matter
The nature of the dark matter of the Universe is yet unknown and most likely
is connected with new physics. The search for its composition is under way
through direct and indirect detection. Fundamental physical aspects such as
energy threshold, geometry and location are taken into account to investigate
proposed neutrino telescopes of km^3 volume sensitivities to dark matter. These
sensitivities are just sufficient to test a few WIMP scenarios. Telescopes of
km^3 volume, such as IceCube, can definitely discover or exclude superheavy (M
> 10^10 GeV) Strong Interacting Massive Particles (Simpzillas). Smaller
neutrino telescopes such as ANTARES, AMANDA-II and NESTOR can probe a large
region of the Simpzilla parameter space.Comment: 28 pages, 9 figure
Constraints on Three-Neutrino Mixing from Atmospheric and Reactor Data
Observations of atmospheric neutrinos are usually analyzed using the
simplifying approximation that either or
two-flavor mixing is relevant. Here we
instead consider the data using the simplifying approximation that only one
neutrino mass scale is relevant. This approximation is the minimal three-flavor
notation that includes the two relevant two-flavor approximations. The
constraints in the parameter space orthogonal to the usual, two-flavor analyses
are studied.Comment: 15 pages, preprint IUHET-26
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