86 research outputs found
Detecting matter effects in long baseline experiments
Experiments strongly suggest that the flavour mixing responsible for the
atmospheric neutrino anomaly is very close to being maximal. Thus, it is of
great theoretical as well as experimental importance to measure any possible
deviation from maximality. In this context, we reexamine the effects of matter
interactions in long baseline neutrino oscillation experiments. Contrary to
popular belief, the muon neutrino survival probability is shown to be quite
sensitive to matter effects. Moreover, for moderately long baselines, the
difference between the survival probilities for and is
shown to be large and sensitive to the deviation of from
maximality. Performing a realistic analysis, we demonstrate that a muon-storage
ring -source alongwith an iron calorimeter detector can measure such
deviations. (Contrary to recent claims, this is not so for the NuMI--{\sc
minos} experiment.) We also discuss the possible correlation in measuring
and in such experiment.Comment: 18 pages, LaTe
Antineutrinos from Earth: A reference model and its uncertainties
We predict geoneutrino fluxes in a reference model based on a detailed
description of Earth's crust and mantle and using the best available
information on the abundances of uranium, thorium, and potassium inside Earth's
layers. We estimate the uncertainties of fluxes corresponding to the
uncertainties of the element abundances. In addition to distance integrated
fluxes, we also provide the differential fluxes as a function of distance from
several sites of experimental interest. Event yields at several locations are
estimated and their dependence on the neutrino oscillation parameters is
discussed. At Kamioka we predict N(U+Th)=35 +- 6 events for 10^{32} proton yr
and 100% efficiency assuming sin^2(2theta)=0.863 and delta m^2 = 7.3 X 10^{-5}
eV^2. The maximal prediction is 55 events, obtained in a model with fully
radiogenic production of the terrestrial heat flow.Comment: 24 pages, ReVTeX4, plus 7 postscript figures; minor formal changes to
match version to be published in PR
On the Size of the Dark Side of the Solar Neutrino Parameter Space
We present an analysis of the MSW neutrino oscillation solutions of the solar
neutrino problem in the framework of two-neutrino mixing in the enlarged
parameter space with . Recently, it was pointed out that the allowed region of
parameters from a fit to the measured total rates can extend to values (the so called ``dark side'') when higher confidence levels
are allowed. The purpose of this letter is to reanalize the problem including
all the solar neutrino data available, to discuss the dependence on the
statistical criteria in the determination of the CL of the ``dark side'' and to
extract the corresponding limits on the largest mixing allowed by the data. Our
results show that when the Super-Kamiokande data on the zenith angle
distribution of events and the spectrum information is included, the regions
extend more into the dark side.Comment: 5 pages,latex file using RevTex. Two-layer aproximation for the Earth
density replaced by numerical integration with PREM. Latest parametrization
of the sun matter density (BP2000) is included. Misprints corrected.
Conclusions unchanged. 5 postscript figures (bitmapped for compression). A
full version of the paper can be found at http://ific.uv.es/~penya/papers/ To
appear in Phys. Rev.
Measuring CP violation and mass ordering in joint long baseline experiments with superbeams
We propose to measure the CP phase , the magnitude of the
neutrino mixing matrix element and the sign of the atmopheric scale
mass--squared difference with a superbeam by the joint
analysis of two different long baseline neutrino oscillation experiments. One
is a long baseline experiment (LBL) at 300 km and the other is a very long
baseline (VLBL) experiment at 2100 km. We take the neutrino source to be the
approved high intensity proton synchrotron, HIPA. The neutrino beam for the LBL
is the 2-degree off-axis superbeam and for the VLBL, a narrow band superbeam.
Taking into account all possible errors, we evaluate the event rates required
and the sensitivities that can be attained for the determination of
and the sign of . We arrive at a
representative scenario for a reasonably precise probe of this part of the
neutrino physics.Comment: 25 RevTEX pages, 16 PS figures, revised figure captions and
references adde
Present and Future Bounds on Non-Standard Neutrino Interactions
We consider Non-Standard neutrino Interactions (NSI), described by
four-fermion operators of the form , where is an electron or first generation quark. We
assume these operators are generated at dimension , so the related
vertices involving charged leptons, obtained by an SU(2) transformation
, do not appear at tree level. These related
vertices necessarily arise at one loop, via exchange. We catalogue current
constraints from measurements in neutrino scattering, from
atmospheric neutrino observations, from LEP, and from bounds on the related
charged lepton operators. We estimate future bounds from comparing KamLAND and
solar neutrino data, and from measuring at the near detector
of a neutrino factory. Operators constructed with and should
not confuse the determination of oscillation parameters at a factory,
because the processes we consider are more sensitive than oscillations at the
far detector. For operators involving , we estimate similar
sensitivities at the near and far detector.Comment: Erratum added at the end of the documen
Geophysical constraints on mirror matter within the Earth
We have performed a detailed investigation of geophysical constraints on the
possible admixture of mirror matter inside the Earth. On the basis of the
Preliminary Reference Earth Model (PREM) -- the `Standard Model' of the Earth's
interior -- we have developed a method which allows one to compute changes in
various quantities characterising the Earth (mass, moment of inertia, normal
mode frequencies etc.)due to the presence of mirror matter. As a result we have
been able to obtain for the first time the direct upper bounds on the possible
concentration of the mirror matter in the Earth. In terms of the ratio of the
mirror mass to the Earth mass a conservative upper bound is . We then analysed possible mechanisms (such as lunar and solar tidal
forces, meteorite impacts and earthquakes) of exciting mirror matter
oscillations around the Earth centre. Such oscillations could manifest
themselves through global variations of the gravitational acceleration at the
Earth's surface. We conclude that such variations are too small to be observed.
Our results are valid for other types of hypothetical matter coupled to
ordinary matter by gravitation only (e.g. the shadow matter of superstring
theories).Comment: 25 pages, in RevTeX, to appear in Phys.Rev.
Atmospheric Neutrino Oscillations and New Physics
We study the robustness of the determination of the neutrino masses and
mixing from the analysis of atmospheric and K2K data under the presence of
different forms of phenomenologically allowed new physics in the nu_mu--nu_tau
sector. We focus on vector and tensor-like new physics interactions which allow
us to treat, in a model independent way, effects due to the violation of the
equivalence principle, violations of the Lorentz invariance both CPT conserving
and CPT violating, non-universal couplings to a torsion field and non-standard
neutrino interactions with matter. We perform a global analysis of the full
atmospheric data from SKI together with long baseline K2K data in the presence
of nu_mu -> nu_tau transitions driven by neutrino masses and mixing together
with sub-dominant effects due to these forms of new physics. We show that
within the present degree of experimental precision, the extracted values of
masses and mixing are robust under those effects and we derive the upper bounds
on the possible strength of these new interactions in the nu_mu--nu_tau sector.Comment: 22 pages, LaTeX file using RevTEX4, 5 figures and 4 tables include
Iron under Earth's core conditions: Liquid-state thermodynamics and high-pressure melting curve
{\em Ab initio} techniques based on density functional theory in the
projector-augmented-wave implementation are used to calculate the free energy
and a range of other thermodynamic properties of liquid iron at high pressures
and temperatures relevant to the Earth's core. The {\em ab initio} free energy
is obtained by using thermodynamic integration to calculate the change of free
energy on going from a simple reference system to the {\em ab initio} system,
with thermal averages computed by {\em ab initio} molecular dynamics
simulation. The reference system consists of the inverse-power pair-potential
model used in previous work. The liquid-state free energy is combined with the
free energy of hexagonal close packed Fe calculated earlier using identical
{\em ab initio} techniques to obtain the melting curve and volume and entropy
of melting. Comparisons of the calculated melting properties with experimental
measurement and with other recent {\em ab initio} predictions are presented.
Experiment-theory comparisons are also presented for the pressures at which the
solid and liquid Hugoniot curves cross the melting line, and the sound speed
and Gr\"{u}neisen parameter along the Hugoniot. Additional comparisons are made
with a commonly used equation of state for high-pressure/high-temperature Fe
based on experimental data.Comment: 16 pages including 6 figures and 5 table
The role of matter density uncertainties in the analysis of future neutrino factory experiments
Matter density uncertainties can affect the measurements of the neutrino
oscillation parameters at future neutrino factory experiments, such as the
measurements of the mixing parameters and \deltacp. We compare
different matter density uncertainty models and discuss the possibility to
include the matter density uncertainties in a complete statistical analysis.
Furthermore, we systematically study in which measurements and where in the
parameter space matter density uncertainties are most relevant. We illustrate
this discussion with examples that show the effects as functions of different
magnitudes of the matter density uncertainties. We find that matter density
uncertainties are especially relevant for large \stheta \gtrsim 10^{-3}.
Within the KamLAND-allowed range, they are most relevant for the precision
measurements of \stheta and \deltacp, but less relevant for ``binary''
measurements, such as for the sign of \ldm, the sensitivity to \stheta, or
the sensitivity to maximal CP violation. In addition, we demonstrate that
knowing the matter density along a specific baseline better than to about 1%
precision means that all measurements will become almost independent of the
matter density uncertainties.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures, LaTeX. Final version to be published in Phys.
Rev.
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