Earthquake forecast via neutrino tomography

We discuss the possibility of forecasting earthquakes by means of (anti)neutrino tomography. Antineutrinos emitted from reactors are used as a probe. As the antineutrinos traverse through a region prone to earthquakes, observable variations in the matter effect on the antineutrino oscillation would provide a tomography of the vicinity of the region. In this preliminary work, we adopt a simplified model for the geometrical profile and matter density in a fault zone. We calculate the survival probability of electron antineutrinos for cases without and with an anomalous accumulation of electrons which can be considered as a clear signal of the coming earthquake, at the geological region with a fault zone, and find that the variation may reach as much as 3% for ν_e emitted from a reactor. The case for a ν_e beam from a neutrino factory is also investigated, and it is noted that, because of the typically high energy associated with such neutrinos, the oscillation length is too large and the resultant variation is not practically observable. Our conclusion is that with the present reactor facilities and detection techniques, it is still a difficult task to make an earthquake forecast using such a scheme, though it seems to be possible from a theoretical point of view while ignoring some uncertainties. However, with the development of the geology, especially the knowledge about the fault zone, and with the improvement of the detection techniques, etc., there is hope that a medium-term earthquake forecast would be feasible.     

Maximal atmospheric neutrino mixing from texture zeros and quasi-degenerate neutrino masses

It is well known that, in the basis where the charged-lepton mass matrix is diagonal, there are seven cases of two texture zeros in Majorana neutrino mass matrices that are compatible with all experimental data. We show that two of these cases, namely B₃ and B₄ in the classification of Frampton, Glashow and Marfatia, are special in the sense that they automatically lead to near-maximal atmospheric neutrino mixing in the limit of a quasi-degenerate neutrino mass spectrum. This property holds true irrespective of the values of the solar and reactor mixing angles because, for these two cases, in the limit of a quasi-degenerate spectrum, the second and third row of the lepton mixing matrix are, up to signs, approximately complex-conjugate to each other. Moreover, in the same limit the aforementioned cases also develop a maximal CP-violating CKM-type phase, provided the reactor mixing angle is not too small.     

Bounds on neutrino mixing with exotic singlet neutrinos

We examine the effects of mixing induced non-diagonal light-heavy neutrino weak neutral currents on the amplitude for the process (with a=e, μ or τ). By imposing constraint that the amplitude should not exceed the perturbative unitarity limit at high energy , we obtain bounds on light-heavy neutrino mixing parameter sin² where is the mixing angle. In the case of one heavy neutrino (mass mξ) or mass degenerate heavy neutrinos, for Λ=1 TeV, no bound is obtained for mξ<0.50 TeV. However, sin² ≤3.8 × 10⁻⁶ for mξ=5 TeV and sin ≤6.0 × 10⁻⁸ for mξ=10 TeV. For Λ=∞, no constraint is obtained for mξ<0.99 TeV and sin² ≤3.8 × 10⁻² (for mξ=5 TeV) and sin² ≤9.6 × 10⁻³ (for mξ=10 TeV).     

认识中微子

由于中微子的作用截面很小而不容易被探测和认识，从而人们给予中微子一些独特的性质，如中微子没有确定的内禀宇称，没有静止质量和磁矩或存在所谓中微子振荡现象等。     

Precision measurements and tau neutrino physics in a future accelerator neutrino experiment

We investigate prospects of building a future accelerator-based neutrino oscillation experiment in China, including site selection, beam optimization and tau neutrino physics aspects. CP violation, non-unitary mixing and non-standard neutrino interactions are discussed. We simulate neutrino beam setups based on muon and beta decay techniques and compare Chinese laboratory sites by their expected sensitivities. A case study on the Super Proton–Proton Collider and the China JinPing Laboratory is also presented. It is shown that the muon-decay-based beam setup can measure the Dirac CP phase by about 14.2° precision at 1σ CL, whereas non-unitarity can be probed down to ∣α_ij∣ ≲ 0.37 (i ≠ j = 1, 2, 3) and non-standard interactions to $| {epsilon }_{{ell }{ell }^{prime} }^{m}| lesssim $ 0.11 (${ell }ne {ell }^{prime} =e$, μ, τ) at 90% CL, respectively.     

Charged lepton contributions to bipair neutrino mixing

The bipair neutrino mixing describes the observed solar and atmospheric mixings; however, it predicts vanishing reactor mixing angle, which is inconsistent with the observed data. We explore the ways of minimally modifying the bipair neutrino mixing by including charged lepton contributions. There are two categories of the bipair neutrino mixing which are referred to as case 1 and case 2. It turns out that, without arbitrary phases, a minimal modification is realized by just considering one e–τ$e\text{–}\tau$ contribution from the charged lepton sector in the case 1. On the other hand, not only e–τ$e\text{–}\tau$ contribution but also μ–τ$\mu \text{–}\tau$ contribution is required to realize a minimal modification in the case 2.     

On the possibility to determine neutrino mass hierarchy via supernova neutrinos with short-time characteristics

In this paper, we investigate whether it is possible to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy via a high-statistics and real-time observation of supernova neutrinos with short-time characteristics. The essential idea is to utilize distinct times-of-flight for different neutrino mass eigenstates from a core-collapse supernova to the Earth, which may significantly change the time distribution of neutrino events in the future huge water-Cherenkov and liquid-scintillator detectors. For illustration, we consider two different scenarios. The first case is the neutronization burst of emitted in the first tens of milliseconds of a core-collapse supernova, while the second case is the black hole formation during the accretion phase for which neutrino signals are expected to be abruptly terminated. In the latter scenario, it turns out only when the supernova is at a distance of a few Mpc and the fiducial mass of the detector is at the level of gigaton, might we be able to discriminate between normal and inverted neutrino mass hierarchies. In the former scenario, the probability for such a discrimination is even less due to a poor statistics.     

Bi-large Neutrino Mixing See-Saw Mass Matrix with Texture Zeros and Leptogenesis

We study constraints on neutrino properties for a class of bi-large mixing See-Saw mass matrices with texture zeros and with the related Dirac neutrino mass matrix to be proportional to a diagonal matrix of the form diag(ε,1,1). Texture zeros may occur in the light (class a) or in the heavy (class b) neutrino mass matrices. Each of these two classes has 5 different forms which can produce non-trivial three generation mixing with at least one texture zero. We find that two types of texture zero mass matrices in both class a and class b can be consistent with present data on neutrino masses and mixing. None of the neutrinos can have zero masses and the lightest of the light neutrinos has a mass larger than about 0.046 eV for class a and 0.0027 eV for class b. In these models although the CKM CP violating phase vanishes, the non-zero Majorana phases can exist and can play an important role in producing the observed baryon asymmetry in our universe through leptogenesis mechanism. The requirement of producing the observed baryon asymmetry can further distinguish different models and also restrict the See-Saw scale to be in the range of 10¹²～10¹⁵ GeV. We also discuss RG effects on V₁₃.     

Friedberg-Lee neutrino model with μ-τ reflection symmetry

In this letter, we make an attempt to embed the μ-τ reflection symmetry (which predicts maximal atmospherical mixing angle and Dirac CP phase) in the Friedberg-Lee neutrino model (which employs a translational flavor symmetry and keeps one neutrino mass vanishing) and study the consequences of such a combination.     

大亚湾反应堆中微子实验

中微子振荡是目前唯一超出粒子物理标准模型的新现象，它证明了中微子质量不为零，对粒子物理、天体物理与宇宙学均有非常重要的意义．在描述中微子振荡的6个参数中，目前仍有两个未知：交叉混合角θ13与CP相角δ．作者建议在大亚湾反应堆附近建设一个中微子实验站，测量混合角sin^2θ13，在90％的置信度下达到0．01的精度，较过去的实验提高近一个数量级．这将对中微子物理的未来发展提供方向性指导，特别是对理解宇宙中“反物质消失之谜”具有重要意义．     

New answer to the solar neutrino problem

We suggest a new answer to the problem of the solar neutrinos: a neutrino-photon interaction that would cause the neutrinos to disappear before they leave the sun or make them lose energy towards detection thresholds. We calculate the available energy in the system of the centre of mass, and show that the photons may be endowed with a pseudo-cross-section in the system of the sun. Under the assumption of an absorption, made to simplify the neutrino transport calculation, the chlorine experiment yields:σ _a =1.8( _−1.0 ^+0.7 )*10⁻⁹ barn, which is close tog _β/(ℏc)=4·49^*10⁻⁹ barn. The escape probability is substantially larger for the gallium neutrinos than for the chlorine neutrinos. Thermal radiation in the core of a supernova is suppressed by electrical conductivity, therefore the neutrinos from SN1987A could escape; they interacted with the photon piston in the outer layers of the supernova and the interaction has to be a scattering. The cosmological implications of a neutrino-photon interaction are discussed; Hubble’s constant may have to be modified. The case of an elastic scattering between neutrino and photon is discussed in more detail. An erratum to this article is available at .     

Mass neutrino oscillations in Robertson--Walker space--time

Along the geodesic we calculate the interference phase of the mass neutrinos propagating in the radial direction in Robertson--Walker space--time. Since our universe is expanding, the phase factor Ph is increasing under the condition of the same proper physical distance l. Different values of curvature parameter k in Robertson--Walker metric represent different cosmological models, correspondingly, we obtain the different interference phases.     

Mean square number fluctuation for a fermion source and its dependence on neutrino mass for the universal cosmic neutrino background

Using the general formulation for obtaining chemical potentialμ of an ideal Fermi gas of particles at temperature T, with particle rest mass m₀ and average density 〈N〉/V, the dependence of the mean square number fluctuation 〈ΔN ²〉/V on the particle mass m₀ has been calculated explicitly. The numerical calculations are exact in all cases whether rest mass energym ₀c² is very large (non-relativistic case), very small (ultra-relativistic case) or of the same order as the thermal energy k_BT. Application of our results to the detection of the universal very low energy cosmic neutrino background (CNB), from any of the three species of neutrinos, shows that it is possible to estimate the neutrino mass of these species if from approximate experimental measurements of their momentum distribution one can extract, someday, not only the density 〈N _v〉/V but also the mean square fluctuation 〈Δ _v ² 〉/V. If at the present epoch, the universe is expanding much faster than thermalization rate for CNB, it is shown that our analysis leads to a scaled neutrino massm _v instead of the actual massm _0v .     

Domain of mixing angles in three flavor neutrino oscillations

We clarify the domain needed for the mixing angles in three flavor neutrino oscillations. By comparing the ranges of the transition probabilities as functions of the domains of the mixing angles, we show that it is necessary and sufficient to let all mixing angles be in . This holds irrespectively of any assumptions on the neutrino mass squared differences.     

Neutrinoless ββ decay and the electron neutrino mass

We discuss the nuclear structure elements participant in the calculation of the half-life of the neutrinoless double beta decay, and the consequences upon the adopted limits of the electron-neutrino mass. Presented by O. Civitarese at the Workshop on calculation of double-beta-decay matrix elements (MEDEX’05), Corfu, Greece, September 26–29, 2005.     

Solar neutrino oscillation phenomenology

This article summarises the status of the solar neutrino oscillation phenomenology at the end of 2002 in the light of the SNO and KamLAND results. We first present the allowed areas obtained from global solar analysis and demonstrate the preference of the solar data towards the large-mixing-angle (LMA) MSW solution. A clear confirmation in favour of the LMA solution comes from the KamLAND reactor neutrino data. The KamLAND spectral data in conjunction with the global solar data further narrows down the allowed LMA region and splits it into two allowed zones a low Δm ² region (low-LMA) and high Δm ² region (high-LMA). We demonstrate through a projected analysis that with an exposure of 3 kton-year (kTy) KamLAND can remove this ambiguity.     

无质量中微子螺旋性混合态

自旋为1/2的中微子遵从Majorana方程,其螺旋性为守恒量.利用压缩相干态可以为中微子给出螺旋算符与哈密顿量之共同本征态的显式表达,但却是不可归一化的.可归一化的波包依然保持为螺旋算符的本征态,但不再是能量的本征态.存在传播速度为零的等权混合螺旋态波包.此情形没有经典对应,在无质量玻色子世界中也无对应.若这样的混合螺旋态波包对应无质量费米子的粒子-反粒子对,则提供了一种暗物质的可能构成方案.     

大亚湾反应堆中微子实验

中微子振荡是目前唯一超出粒子物理标准模型的新现象,它证明了中微子质量不为零,对粒子物理、天体物理与宇宙学均有非常重要的意义.在描述中微子振荡的6个参数中,目前仍有两个未知：交叉混合角θ13与CP相角δ. 作者建议在大亚湾反应堆附近建设一个中微子实验站,测量混合角sin22θ13在90%的置信度下达到0.01 的精度,较过去的实验提高近一个数量级.这将对中微子物理的未来发展提供方向性指导,特别是对理解宇宙中“反物质消失之谜”具有重要意义.     

Introduction to a field-theoretical treatment of neutrino oscillations

We discuss the main features of the field-theoretical approach to neutrino oscillations where one combines neutrino production and detection processes in a single Feynman graph. The ‘oscillating neutrinos’ are represented by inner lines of this graph and appear in the calculation of the cross section of the total process as propagators of the neutrino mass eigenfields. We show that this field-theoretical approach leads to a transparent treatment of neutrino oscillations without ambiguities and provides the correct answer in cases where the standard approach fails.