504 research outputs found
Can a supernova be located by its neutrinos?
A future core-collapse supernova in our Galaxy will be detected by several
neutrino detectors around the world. The neutrinos escape from the supernova
core over several seconds from the time of collapse, unlike the electromagnetic
radiation, emitted from the envelope, which is delayed by a time of order
hours. In addition, the electromagnetic radiation can be obscured by dust in
the intervening interstellar space. The question therefore arises whether a
supernova can be located by its neutrinos alone. The early warning of a
supernova and its location might allow greatly improved astronomical
observations. The theme of the present work is a careful and realistic
assessment of this question, taking into account the statistical significance
of the various neutrino signals. Not surprisingly, neutrino-electron forward
scattering leads to a good determination of the supernova direction, even in
the presence of the large and nearly isotropic background from other reactions.
Even with the most pessimistic background assumptions, SuperKamiokande (SK) and
the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) can restrict the supernova direction to
be within circles of radius and , respectively. Other
reactions with more events but weaker angular dependence are much less useful
for locating the supernova. Finally, there is the oft-discussed possibility of
triangulation, i.e., determination of the supernova direction based on an
arrival time delay between different detectors. Given the expected statistics
we show that, contrary to previous estimates, this technique does not allow a
good determination of the supernova direction.Comment: 11 pages including 2 figures. Revised version corrects typos, adds
some brief comment
Neutrino mass from cosmology: Impact of high-accuracy measurement of the Hubble constant
Non-zero neutrino mass would affect the evolution of the Universe in
observable ways, and a strong constraint on the mass can be achieved using
combinations of cosmological data sets. We focus on the power spectrum of
cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies, the Hubble constant H_0, and
the length scale for baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) to investigate the
constraint on the neutrino mass, m_nu. We analyze data from multiple existing
CMB studies (WMAP5, ACBAR, CBI, BOOMERANG, and QUAD), recent measurement of H_0
(SHOES), with about two times lower uncertainty (5%) than previous estimates,
and recent treatments of BAO from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We
obtained an upper limit of m_nu < 0.2eV (95% C.L.), for a flat LambdaCDM model.
This is a 40% reduction in the limit derived from previous H_0 estimates and
one-third lower than can be achieved with extant CMB and BAO data. We also
analyze the impact of smaller uncertainty on measurements of H_0 as may be
anticipated in the near term, in combination with CMB data from the Planck
mission, and BAO data from the SDSS/BOSS program. We demonstrate the
possibility of a 5 sigma detection for a fiducial neutrino mass of 0.1eV or a
95% upper limit of 0.04eV for a fiducial of m_nu = 0eV. These constraints are
about 50% better than those achieved without external constraint. We further
investigate the impact on modeling where the dark-energy equation of state is
constant but not necessarily -1, or where a non-flat universe is allowed. In
these cases, the next-generation accuracies of Planck, BOSS, and 1% measurement
of H_0 would all be required to obtain the limit m_nu < 0.05 - 0.06eV (95%
C.L.) for the fiducial of m_nu = 0eV. The independence of systematics argues
for pursuit of both BAO and H_0 measurements.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, 12 table
Shell-model calculations of neutrino scattering from 12C
Neutrino reaction cross-sections, , ,
-capture and photoabsorption rates on C are computed within a
large-basis shell-model framework, which included excitations up to
. When ground-state correlations are included with an open
-shell the predictions of the calculations are in reasonable agreement with
most of the experimental results for these reactions. Woods-Saxon radial wave
functions are used, with their asymptotic forms matched to the experimental
separation energies for bound states, and matched to a binding energy of 0.01
MeV for unbound states. For comparison purposes, some results are given for
harmonic oscillator radial functions. Closest agreement between theory and
experiment is achieved with unrestricted shell-model configurations and
Woods-Saxon radial functions. We obtain for the neutrino-absorption inclusive
cross sections: cm for the
decay-in-flight flux in agreement with the LSND datum of
cm; and cm for the decay-at-rest flux, less than the
experimental result of cm.Comment: 19 pages. ReVTeX. No figure
The angular distribution of the reaction
The reaction is very important for low-energy
( MeV) antineutrino experiments. In this paper we calculate
the positron angular distribution, which at low energies is slightly backward.
We show that weak magnetism and recoil corrections have a large effect on the
angular distribution, making it isotropic at about 15 MeV and slightly forward
at higher energies. We also show that the behavior of the cross section and the
angular distribution can be well-understood analytically for MeV by calculating to , where is the nucleon mass. The
correct angular distribution is useful for separating events from other reactions and detector backgrounds, as well as for
possible localization of the source (e.g., a supernova) direction. We comment
on how similar corrections appear for the lepton angular distributions in the
deuteron breakup reactions and . Finally, in the reaction , the
angular distribution of the outgoing neutrons is strongly forward-peaked,
leading to a measurable separation in positron and neutron detection points,
also potentially useful for rejecting backgrounds or locating the source
direction.Comment: 10 pages, including 5 figure
What can we learn from neutrinoless double beta decay experiments?
We assess how well next generation neutrinoless double beta decay and normal
neutrino beta decay experiments can answer four fundamental questions. 1) If
neutrinoless double beta decay searches do not detect a signal, and if the
spectrum is known to be inverted hierarchy, can we conclude that neutrinos are
Dirac particles? 2) If neutrinoless double beta decay searches are negative and
a next generation ordinary beta decay experiment detects the neutrino mass
scale, can we conclude that neutrinos are Dirac particles? 3) If neutrinoless
double beta decay is observed with a large neutrino mass element, what is the
total mass in neutrinos? 4) If neutrinoless double beta decay is observed but
next generation beta decay searches for a neutrino mass only set a mass upper
limit, can we establish whether the mass hierarchy is normal or inverted? We
base our answers on the expected performance of next generation neutrinoless
double beta decay experiments and on simulations of the accuracy of
calculations of nuclear matrix elements.Comment: Added reference
Neutrinoless double beta decay within Self-consistent Renormalized Quasiparticle Random Phase Approximation and inclusion of induced nucleon currents
The first, to our knowledge, calculation of neutrinoless double beta decay
(-decay) matrix elements within the self-consistent
renormalised Quasiparticle Random Phase Approximation (SRQRPA) is presented.
The contribution from the momentum-dependent induced nucleon currents to
-decay amplitude is taken into account. A detailed nuclear
structure study includes the discussion of the sensitivity of the obtained
SRQRPA results for -decay of Ge to the parameters of
nuclear Hamiltonian, two-nucleon short-range correlations and the truncation of
the model space. A comparision with the standard and renormalized QRPA is
presented. We have found a considerable reduction of the SRQRPA nuclear matrix
elements, resulting in less stringent limits for the effective neutrino mass.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl
Capture of Solar and Higher-Energy Neutrinos by Iodine 127
We discuss and improve a recent treatment of the absorption of solar
neutrinos by I, in connection with a proposed solar neutrino
detector. With standard-solar-model fluxes and an in-medium value of -1.0 for
the axial-vector coupling constant , we obtain a B-neutrino cross
section of 3.3, about 50\% larger than in our previous work,
and a Be cross section that is less certain but nevertheless also larger
than before. We then apply the improved techniques to higher incoming energies
that obtain at the LAMPF beam dump, where an experiment is underway to finalize
a calibration of the I with electron neutrinos from muon decay. We
find that forbidden operators, which play no role in solar-neutrino absorption,
contribute nonnegligibly to the LAMPF cross section, and that the preliminary
LAMPF mean value is significantly larger than our prediction.Comment: 13 pages + 3 postscript figures (attached), in RevTex 3 , submitted
to Phys. Rev.
Fully-Renormalized QRPA fulfills Ikeda sum rule exactly
The renormalized quasiparticle-RPA is reformulated for even-even nuclei using
restrictions imposed by the commutativity of the phonon creation operator with
the total particle number operator. This new version, Fully-Renormalized QRPA
(FR-QRPA), is free from the spurious low-energy solutions. Analytical proof is
given that the Ikeda sum rule is fullfiled within the FR-QRPA.Comment: 9 page
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