767 research outputs found
Minimal Cosmogenic Neutrinos
The observed flux of ultra-high energy (UHE) cosmic rays (CRs) guarantees the
presence of high-energy cosmogenic neutrinos that are produced via
photo-hadronic interactions of CRs propagating through intergalactic space.
This flux of neutrinos doesn't share the many uncertainties associated with the
environment of the yet unknown CR sources. Cosmogenic neutrinos have
nevertheless a strong model dependence associated with the chemical
composition, source distribution or evolution and maximal injection energy of
UHE CRs. We discuss a lower limit on the cosmogenic neutrino spectrum which
depends on the observed UHE CR spectrum and composition and relates directly to
experimentally observable and model-independent quantities. We show explicit
limits for conservative assumptions about the source evolution.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure
Constraints on the origin of the ultra-high energy cosmic-rays using cosmic diffuse neutrino flux limits: An analytical approach
Astrophysical neutrinos are expected to be produced in the interactions of
ultra-high energy cosmic-rays with surrounding photons. The fluxes of the
astrophysical neutrinos are highly dependent on the characteristics of the
cosmic-ray sources, such as their cosmological distributions. We study possible
constraints on the properties of cosmic-ray sources in a model-independent way
using experimentally obtained diffuse neutrino flux above 100 PeV. The
semi-analytic formula is derived to estimate the cosmogenic neutrino fluxes as
functions of source evolution parameter and source extension in redshift. The
obtained formula converts the upper-limits on the neutrino fluxes into the
constraints on the cosmic-ray sources. It is found that the recently obtained
upper-limit on the cosmogenic neutrinos by IceCube constrains the scenarios
with strongly evolving ultra-high energy cosmic-ray sources, and the future
limits from an 1 km^3 scale detector are able to further constrain the
ultra-high energy cosmic-rays sources with evolutions comparable to the cosmic
star formation rate.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures and 1 table. Accepted by Phys. Rev.
Lorentz Violation for Photons and Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays
Lorentz symmetry breaking at very high energies may lead to photon dispersion
relations of the form omega^2=k^2+xi_n k^2(k/M_Pl)^n with new terms suppressed
by a power n of the Planck mass M_Pl. We show that first and second order terms
of size xi_1 > 10^(-14) and xi_2 < -10^(-6), respectively, would lead to a
photon component in cosmic rays above 10^(19) eV that should already have been
detected, if corresponding terms for electrons and positrons are significantly
smaller. This suggests that Lorentz invariance breakings suppressed up to
second order in the Planck scale are unlikely to be phenomenologically viable
for photons.Comment: 4 revtex pages, 3 postscript figures included, version published in
PR
Testing Lorentz Invariance with Ultra High Energy Cosmic Ray Spectrum
The GZK cutoff predicted at the Ultra High Energy Cosmic Ray (UHECR) spectrum
as been observed by the HiRes and Auger experiments. The results put severe
constraints on the effect of Lorentz Invariance Violation(LIV) which has been
introduced to explain the absence of GZK cutoff indicated in the AGASA data.
Assuming homogeneous source distribution with a single power law spectrum, we
calculate the spectrum of UHECRs observed on Earth by taking the processes of
photopion production, pair production and adiabatic energy loss into
account. The effect of LIV is also taken into account in the calculation. By
fitting the HiRes monocular spectra and the Auger combined spectra, we show
that the LIV parameter is constrained to
and respectively, which is well consistent
with strict Lorentz Invariance up to the highest energy.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review D 12 pages, 4 figure
Neutrino Oscillations, Lorentz/CPT Violation, and Dark Energy
If dark energy (DE) couples to neutrinos, then there may be apparent
violations of Lorentz/CPT invariance in neutrino oscillations. The DE-induced
Lorentz/CPT violation takes a specific form that introduces neutrino
oscillations that are energy independent, differ for particles and
antiparticles, and can lead to novel effects for neutrinos propagating through
matter. We show that ultra-high-energy neutrinos may provide one avenue to seek
this type of Lorentz/CPT violation in \nu_\mu-\nu_\tau oscillations, improving
the current sensitivity to such effects by seven orders of magnitude.
Lorentz/CPT violation in electron-neutrino oscillations may be probed with the
zenith-angle dependence for high-energy atmospheric neutrinos. The ``smoking
gun,'' for DE-neutrino coupling would, however, be a dependence of neutrino
oscillations on the direction of the neutrino momentum relative to our peculiar
velocity with respect to the CMB rest frame. While the amplitude of this
directional dependence is expected to be small, it may nevertheless be worth
seeking in current data and may be a target for future neutrino experiments.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure
Deep shower interpretation of the cosmic ray events observed in excess of the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin energy
We consider the possibility that the ultra-high-energy cosmic ray flux has a
small component of exotic particles which create showers much deeper in the
atmosphere than ordinary hadronic primaries. It is shown that applying the
conventional AGASA/HiRes/Auger data analysis procedures to such exotic events
results in large systematic biases in the energy spectrum measurement. SubGZK
exotic showers may be mis-reconstructed with much higher energies and mimick
superGZK events. Alternatively, superGZK exotic showers may elude detection by
conventional fluorescence analysis techniques.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figure
Diagnostic Potential of Cosmic-Neutrino Absorption Spectroscopy
Annihilation of extremely energetic cosmic neutrinos on the relic-neutrino
background can give rise to absorption lines at energies corresponding to
formation of the electroweak gauge boson . The positions of the
absorption dips are set by the masses of the relic neutrinos. Suitably intense
sources of extremely energetic ( -- -eV) cosmic neutrinos
might therefore enable the determination of the absolute neutrino masses and
the flavor composition of the mass eigenstates. Several factors--other than
neutrino mass and composition--distort the absorption lines, however. We
analyze the influence of the time-evolution of the relic-neutrino density and
the consequences of neutrino decay. We consider the sensitivity of the
lineshape to the age and character of extremely energetic neutrino sources, and
to the thermal history of the Universe, reflected in the expansion rate. We
take into account Fermi motion arising from the thermal distribution of the
relic-neutrino gas. We also note the implications of Dirac vs. Majorana relics,
and briefly consider unconventional neutrino histories. We ask what kinds of
external information would enhance the potential of cosmic-neutrino absorption
spectroscopy, and estimate the sensitivity required to make the technique a
reality.Comment: 25 pages, 26 figures (in 46 files), uses RevTe
Cosmic Ray in the Northern Hemisphere: Results from the Telescope Array Experiment
The Telescope Array (TA) is the largest ultrahigh energy (UHE) cosmic ray
observatory in the northern hemisphere TA is a hybrid experiment with a unique
combination of fluorescence detectors and a stand-alone surface array of
scintillation counters. We will present the spectrum measured by the surface
array alone, along with those measured by the fluorescence detectors in
monocular, hybrid, and stereo mode. The composition results from stereo TA data
will be discussed. Our report will also include results from the search for
correlations between the pointing directions of cosmic rays, seen by the TA
surface array, with active galactic nuclei.Comment: 8 pages 11 figure, Proceedings of the APS Division of Particle and
Fields (DPF) Meeting, Aug 2011, Brown University, Providence, RI, US
Predictions for the Cosmogenic Neutrino Flux in Light of New Data from the Pierre Auger Observatory
The Pierre Auger Observatory (PAO) has measured the spectrum and composition
of the ultrahigh energy cosmic rays with unprecedented precision. We use these
measurements to constrain their spectrum and composition as injected from their
sources and, in turn, use these results to estimate the spectrum of cosmogenic
neutrinos generated in their propagation through intergalactic space. We find
that the PAO measurements can be well fit if the injected cosmic rays consist
entirely of nuclei with masses in the intermediate (C, N, O) to heavy (Fe, Si)
range. A mixture of protons and heavier species is also acceptable but (on the
basis of existing hadronic interaction models) injection of pure light nuclei
(p, He) results in unacceptable fits to the new elongation rate data. The
expected spectrum of cosmogenic neutrinos can vary considerably, depending on
the precise spectrum and chemical composition injected from the cosmic ray
sources. In the models where heavy nuclei dominate the cosmic ray spectrum and
few dissociated protons exceed GZK energies, the cosmogenic neutrino flux can
be suppressed by up to two orders of magnitude relative to the all-proton
prediction, making its detection beyond the reach of current and planned
neutrino telescopes. Other models consistent with the data, however, are
proton-dominated with only a small (1-10%) admixture of heavy nuclei and
predict an associated cosmogenic flux within the reach of upcoming experiments.
Thus a detection or non-detection of cosmogenic neutrinos can assist in
discriminating between these possibilities.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure
Neutrinos: the Key to UHE Cosmic Rays
Observations of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays (UHECR) do not uniquely
determine both the injection spectrum and the evolution model for UHECR sources
- primarily because interactions during propagation obscure the early Universe
from direct observation. Detection of neutrinos produced in those same
interactions, coupled with UHECR results, would provide a full description of
UHECR source properties.Comment: three pages, three figures. corrected typo
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