Three-parameter Lorentz-violating texture for neutrino mixing

A three-parameter model of neutrino oscillations based on a simple Lorentz- and CPT-violating texture is presented. The model is consistent with established data and naturally generates low-energy and neutrino–antineutrino anomalies of the MiniBooNE type. A one-parameter extension incorporates the MINOS anomaly, while a simple texture enhancement accommodates the LSND signal.     

A step toward CNO solar neutrino detection in liquid scintillators

The detection of CNO solar neutrinos in ultrapure liquid scintillator detectors is limited by the background produced by bismuth-210 nuclei that undergo β-decay to polonium-210 with a lifetime of ∼7 days. Polonium-210 nuclei are unstable and decay with a lifetime equal to ∼200 days emitting α particles that can be also detected. In this Letter, we show that the Bi-210 background can be determined by looking at the time evolution of α-decay rate of Po-210, provided that α particle detection efficiency is stable over the data acquisition period and external sources of Po-210 are negligible. A sufficient accuracy can be obtained in a relatively short time. As an example, if the initial Po-210 event rate is ∼2000 cpd/100 ton or lower, a Borexino-like detector could start discerning CNO neutrino signal from Bi-210 background in Δt∼1 yr.     

Neutrinos from CNO cycle at the present epoch of the solar neutrino research

The CNO cycle contributes only a small fraction to the energy generated in the Sun but there’s still no experimental data on exactly how small this contribution is. After the results of Borexino experiment the CNO neutrinos it is the last missing chain to compose the total picture of the energy generation of the Sun. To get precision in the evaluation of the flux of pp-neutrinos one needs to measure the flux of CNO neutrinos. Then it will be possible to address the question on the presence of still unknown (hidden) sources of solar energy and/or on the presence of sterile neutrinos. The future experimental program to measure the effect from CNO neutrinos is discussed.     

Three flavour oscillation interpretation of neutrino data

I consider the mixing of the three active neutrino flavours and obtain the constraints on the parameters of this mixing from the solar, atmospheric and reactor neutrino data.     

Diffuse ultra-high energy neutrino fluxes and physics beyond the Standard Model

We study spectral distortions of diffuse ultra-high energy (UHE) neutrino flavour fluxes resulting due to physics beyond the Standard Model (SM). Even large spectral differences between flavours at the source are massaged into a common shape at earth by SM oscillations, thus, any significant observed spectral differences are an indicator of new physics present in the oscillation probability during propagation. Lorentz symmetry violation (LV) and neutrino decay are examples, and result in significant distortion of the fluxes and of the well-known bounds on them, which may allow UHE detectors to probe LV parameters, lifetimes and the mass hierarchy over a broad range.     

Experimental evidence of electron neutrino oscillations and validation of MSW-LMA model with Borexino

We report the real time measurements of ⁷Be and ⁸B solar neutrino fluxes performed with the Borexino experiment at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso. The achievement of these measurements was possible thanks to the excellent levels of the radiopurity reached. The measurement of the ⁷Be in real time is the first direct measurements of the survival probability for solar electron neutrinos in the vacuum region. For ⁸B we reached a threshold energy of 3MeV which is the lowest achieved so far in real time. For the first time, the same apparatus can measure two different oscillation regions (vacuum-driven and matter-enhanced) predicted by the MSW-LMA model. Borexino also quotes the ratio between the survival probabilities, corresponding to 1.93 ± 0.75, and validates the presence of the transition region between the two oscillation regimes, according to the MSW-LMA solution.In addition, a preliminary result on the Day-Night Asymmetry (ADN) for the ⁷Be neutrino flux is presented and corresponds to 0.007 ± 0.073. This measurement makes Borexino able to give once more an independent confirmation of the MSW-LMA solution.     

Experimental signatures of cosmological neutrino condensation

Superfluid condensation of neutrinos of cosmological origin at a low enough temperature can provide simple and elegant solution to the problems of neutrino oscillations and the accelerated expansion of the universe. It would give rise to a late time cosmological constant of small magnitude and also generate tiny masses for the neutrinos as observed from their flavor oscillations. We show that carefully prepared beta decay experiments in the laboratory would carry signatures of such a condensation, and thus, it would be possible to either establish or rule out neutrino condensation of cosmological scale in laboratory experiments.     

Matter effects in active-sterile solar neutrino oscillations

We study the matter effects for solar neutrino oscillations in a general scheme, without any constraint on the number of sterile neutrinos and the mixing matrix elements, only assuming a realistic hierarchy of neutrino squared-mass differences in which the smallest squared-mass difference is effective in solar neutrino oscillations. The validity of the analytic results is illustrated with a numerical solution of the evolution equation in the simplest case of four-neutrino mixing with the realistic matter density profile inside the Sun.     

Precision measurement of the (7)Be solar neutrino interaction rate in Borexino

The rate of neutrino-electron elastic scattering interactions from 862 keV (7)Be solar neutrinos in Borexino is determined to be 46.0±1.5(stat)(-1.6)(+1.5)(syst)?counts/(day·100 ton). This corresponds to a ν(e)-equivalent (7)Be solar neutrino flux of (3.10±0.15)×10(9) cm(-2)?s(-1) and, under the assumption of ν(e) transition to other active neutrino flavours, yields an electron neutrino survival probability of 0.51±0.07 at 862 keV. The no flavor change hypothesis is ruled out at 5.0?σ. A global solar neutrino analysis with free fluxes determines Φ(pp)=6.06(-0.06)(+0.02)×10(10) cm(-2)?s(-1) and Φ(CNO)<1.3×10(9) cm(-2)?s(-1) (95% C.L.). These results significantly improve the precision with which the Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein large mixing angle neutrino oscillation model is experimentally tested at low energy.     

Importance of nuclear effects in the measurement of neutrino oscillation parameters

We investigate how models for neutrino–nucleus cross sections based on different assumptions for the nuclear dynamics affect the forecasted sensitivities to neutrino oscillation parameters at future neutrino facilities. We limit ourselves to the quasi-elastic regime, where the neutrino cross sections can be evaluated with less uncertainties, and discuss the sensitivity reach to θ₁₃${\theta }_{13}$ and δ at a prototype low-γ β-beam, mostly sensitive to the quasi-elastic regime.     

Beyond the new standard model in neutrino oscillations

We discuss effects of new physics (NP) in neutrino oscillation experiments. Such effects can modify a production neutrino flux, a detection cross-section and a matter transition. As a result, the NP effects change neutrino oscillations both in vacuum and in matter. A relation between the small effects of NP and the oscillation parameters is discussed. It is shown for which parameters the NP effects are suppressed and when they are potentially large. Oscillations of non-unitary mixed neutrinos are presented in more details.     

Solar neutrino problem in light of super-Kamiokande data

I discuss the status of the accepted solutions to the solar neutrino problem in light of the super-Kamiokande data.     

The rich neutrino programme of the SNO+ experiment

The SNO+ experiment is a multi-faceted neutrino experiment re-using the existing infrastructure and detector hardware of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory located in Vale Inco’s Creighton mine, Sudbury (ON), Canada. The main aim of this, now fully-funded, experiment is the search for neutrinoless double-beta decay, however, it has access to other, very interesting, measurements involving neutrinos, such as lower energy solar neutrinos, geo- and reactor-antineutrinos and supernova neutrinos.     

Resonant spin-flavor precession constraints on the neutrino parameters and the twisting structure of the solar magnetic fields from the solar neutrino data

Resonant spin-flavor precession (RSFP) scenario with twisting solar magnetic fields has been confronted with the solar neutrino data from various ongoing experiments. The anticorrelation apparent in the Homestake solar neutrino data has been taken seriously to constrain (Δ m ² ,φ′) parameter space and the twisting profiles of the magnetic field in the convective zone of the Sun. The twisting profiles, thus derived, have been used to calculate the variation of the neutrino detection rates with the solar magnetic activity for the Homestake, Super-Kamiokande and the gallium experiments. It is found that the presence of twisting reduces the degree of anticorrelation in all the solar neutrino experiments. However, the anticorrelation in the Homestake experiment is expected to be more pronounced in this scenario. Moreover, the anticorrelation of the solar neutrino flux emerging from the southern solar hemisphere is expected to be stronger than that for the neutrinos emerging from the northern solar hemispheres.     

A possible connection between neutrino mass generation and the lightness of a NMSSM pseudoscalar

One of the interesting properties of the NMSSM is that it can accommodate a light pseudoscalar of order 10 GeV. However, such scenarios are challenged by several experimental constraints, especially those related to the fermionic decays of the pseudoscalar. In this Letter, we extend the NMSSM field content by two gauge singlets, with lepton numbers +1 and −1. This serves the twin purpose of generating neutrino masses via the inverse seesaw mechanism and keeping the option of a very light pseudoscalar experimentally viable by opening dominant invisible decay channels of the pseudoscalar which help it evade the existing bounds.     

Neutrino masses and mixing in the light of experimental data

All the possible schemes of neutrino mixing with four massive neutrinos inspired by the existing experimental indications in favour of neutrino mixing are considered. It is shown that the scheme with a neutrino mass hierarchy is not compatible with the experimental results, likewise all other schemes with the masses of three neutrinos close together and the fourth mass separated by a gap needed to incorporate the LSND neutrino oscillations. Only two schemes with two pairs of neutrinos with close masses separated by this gap of the order of 1 eV are in agreement with the results of all experiments. We carefully examine the arguments leading to this conclusion and also discuss experimental consequences of the two favoured neutrino schemes.     

Renormalization of seesaw neutrino masses in the standard model with two-Higgs doublets

Using the theoretical ambiguities inherent in the seesaw mechanism, we derive the new analytic expressions for both quadratic and linear seesaw formulae for neutrino masses at low energies, with either up-type quark masses or charged lepton masses. This is possible through full radiative corrections arising out of the renormalizations of the Yukawa couplings, the coefficients of the neutrino-mass-operator in the standard model with two-Higgs doublets, and also the QCD-QED rescaling factors below the top-quark mass scale, at one-loop level. We also investigate numerically the unification of top-b-τ Yukawa couplings at the scale M ₁=0.59×10⁸ GeV for a fixed value of tan β=58.77, and then evaluate the seesaw neutrino masses which are too large in magnitude to be compatible with the presently available solar and atmospheric neutrino oscillation data. However, if we consider a higher but arbitrary value of M ₁=0.59×10¹¹ GeV, the predictions from linear seesaw formulae with charged lepton masses, can accommodate simultaneousely both solar atmospheric neutrino oscillation data.