12 research outputs found
Relic Neutrino Absorption Spectroscopy
Resonant annihilation of extremely high-energy cosmic neutrinos on big-bang
relic anti-neutrinos (and vice versa) into Z-bosons leads to sizable absorption
dips in the neutrino flux to be observed at Earth. The high-energy edges of
these dips are fixed, via the resonance energies, by the neutrino masses alone.
Their depths are determined by the cosmic neutrino background density, by the
cosmological parameters determining the expansion rate of the universe, and by
the large redshift history of the cosmic neutrino sources. We investigate the
possibility of determining the existence of the cosmic neutrino background
within the next decade from a measurement of these absorption dips in the
neutrino flux. As a by-product, we study the prospects to infer the absolute
neutrino mass scale. We find that, with the presently planned neutrino
detectors (ANITA, Auger, EUSO, OWL, RICE, and SalSA) operating in the relevant
energy regime above 10^{21} eV, relic neutrino absorption spectroscopy becomes
a realistic possibility. It requires, however, the existence of extremely
powerful neutrino sources, which should be opaque to nucleons and high-energy
photons to evade present constraints. Furthermore, the neutrino mass spectrum
must be quasi-degenerate to optimize the dip, which implies m_{nu} >~ 0.1 eV
for the lightest neutrino. With a second generation of neutrino detectors,
these demanding requirements can be relaxed considerably.Comment: 19 pages, 26 figures, REVTeX
Neutrino oscillation constraints on neutrinoless double beta decay
We have studied the constraints imposed by the results of neutrino
oscillation experiments on the effective Majorana mass || that characterizes
the contribution of Majorana neutrino masses to the matrix element of
neutrinoless double-beta decay. We have shown that in a general scheme with
three Majorana neutrinos and a hierarchy of neutrino masses (which can be
explained by the see-saw mechanism), the results of neutrino oscillation
experiments imply rather strong constraints on the parameter ||. From the
results of the first reactor long-baseline experiment CHOOZ and the Bugey
experiment it follows that || < 3x10^{-2} eV if the largest mass-squared
difference is smaller than 2 eV^2. Hence, we conclude that the observation of
neutrinoless double-beta decay with a probability that corresponds to || >
10^{-1} eV would be a signal for a non-hierarchical neutrino mass spectrum
and/or non-standard mechanisms of lepton number violation.Comment: 20 pages, including 4 figure
Photoproduction of pions and properties of baryon resonances from a Bonn-Gatchina partial wave analysis
Masses, widths and photocouplings of baryon resonances are determined in a
coupled-channel partial wave analysis of a large variety of data. The
Bonn-Gatchina partial wave formalism is extended to include a decomposition of
t- and u-exchange amplitudes into individual partial waves. The multipole
transition amplitudes for and are
given and compared to results from other analyses.Comment: 18 pages, 14 figure
P-wave excited baryons from pion- and photo-induced hyperon production
We report evidence for , , ,
, , and , and find
indications that might have a companion state at 1970\,MeV. The
controversial is not seen. The evidence is derived from a
study of data on pion- and photo-induced hyperon production, but other data are
included as well. Most of the resonances reported here were found in the
Karlsruhe-Helsinki (KH84) and the Carnegie-Mellon (CM) analyses but were
challenged recently by the Data Analysis Center at GWU. Our analysis is
constrained by the energy independent scattering amplitudes from either
KH84 or GWU. The two amplitudes from KH84 or GWU, respectively, lead to
slightly different branching ratios of contributing resonances but the
debated resonances are required in both series of fits.Comment: 22 pages, 28 figures. Some additional sets of data are adde