Schizophrenic active neutrinos and exotic sterile neutrinos

We implement a schizophrenic scenario for the active neutrinos in a model in which there are also exotic right-handed neutrinos making a model with a local U_(1)B−L$U{(1)}_{B-L}$ anomaly free. Two of right-handed neutrinos carry B−L=−4$B-L=-4$ while the third one carries B−L=5$B-L=5$. Unlike the non-exotic version of the model, in which all right-handed neutrinos carry the same B−L=−1$B-L=-1$ charge, in this case the neutrinos have their own scalar sector and no hierarchy in the Yukawa coupling in the Dirac mass term is necessary.     

New results on sterile neutrinos searches

New results on sterile neutrinos searches in kaon decays and neutrino oscillation experiments are presented.     

Relic keV sterile neutrinos and reionization

A sterile neutrino with a mass of several keV can account for cosmological dark matter, as well as explain the observed velocities of pulsars. We show that x rays produced by the decays of these relic sterile neutrinos can boost the production of molecular hydrogen, which can speed up the cooling of gas and the early star formation, which can, in turn, lead to a reionization of the Universe at a high enough redshift to be consistent with the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe results.     

Heavy sterile neutrinos and supernova explosions

We consider sterile neutrinos with rest masses 0.2 GeV and with vacuum flavor mixing angles θ²>10⁻⁸ for mixing with τ-neutrinos, or 10⁻⁸<θ²<10⁻⁷ for mixing with muon neutrinos. Such sterile neutrinos could augment core collapse supernova shock energies by enhancing energy transport from the core to the vicinity of the shock front. The decay of these neutrinos could produce a flux of very energetic active neutrinos, detectable by future neutrino observations from galactic supernova. The relevant range of sterile neutrino masses and mixing angles can be probed in future laboratory experiments.     

Tau neutrinos favored over sterile neutrinos in atmospheric muon neutrino oscillations

The previously published atmospheric neutrino data did not distinguish whether muon neutrinos were oscillating into tau neutrinos or sterile neutrinos, as both hypotheses fit the data. Using data recorded in 1100 live days of the Super-Kamiokande detector, we use three complementary data samples to study the difference in zenith angle distribution due to neutral currents and matter effects. We find no evidence favoring sterile neutrinos, and reject the hypothesis at the 99% confidence level. On the other hand, we find that oscillation between muon and tau neutrinos suffices to explain all the results in hand.     

Naturally light sterile neutrinos from theory of R-parity

The fate of R-parity is one of the central issues in the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM). Gauged B−L$B-L$ symmetry provides a natural framework for addressing this question. Recently, it was pointed out that the minimal such theory does not need any additional Higgs if the B−L$B-L$ breaking is achieved through the VEVs of right-handed sneutrinos, which ties the new physics scale to the scale of the MSSM. We show here that this immediately leads to an important prediction of two light sterile neutrinos, which can play a significant role in the BBN and neutrino oscillations. We also discuss some new relevant phenomenology for the LHC, in the context of the minimal supersymmetric left–right symmetric theory which provides a natural setting for the gauged B−L$B-L$ symmetry.     

Parametrization of seesaw models and light sterile neutrinos

The recent recomputation of the neutrino fluxes from nuclear reactors relaxes the tension between the LSND and MiniBooNE anomalies and disappearance data when interpreted in terms of sterile neutrino oscillations. The simplest extension of the Standard Model with such fermion singlets is the addition of right-handed sterile neutrinos with small Majorana masses. Even when introducing three right-handed neutrinos, this scenario has less free parameters than the 3 + 2 scenarios studied in the literature. This begs the question whether the best fit regions obtained can be reproduced by this simplest extension of the Standard Model. In order to address this question, we devise an exact parametrization of Standard Model extensions with right-handed neutrinos. Apart from the usual 3×3 neutrino mixing matrix and the 3 masses of the lightest neutrinos, the extra degrees of freedom are encoded in another 3×3 unitary matrix and 3 additional mixing angles. The parametrization includes all the correlations among masses and mixings and is valid beyond the usual seesaw approximation. Through this parametrization we find that the best fit regions for the LSND and MiniBooNE anomalies in a 3 + 2 scenario can indeed be reproduced despite the smaller number of degrees of freedom.     

Neutrinoless double beta decay and heavy sterile neutrinos

The experimental rate of neutrinoless double beta decay can be saturated by the exchange of virtual sterile neutrinos, that mix with the ordinary neutrinos and are heavier than 200 MeV. Interestingly, this hypothesis is subject only to marginal experimental constraints, because of the new nuclear matrix elements. This possibility is analyzed in the context of the Type I seesaw model, performing also exploratory investigations of the implications for heavy neutrino mass spectra, rare decays of mesons as well as neutrino-decay search, LHC, and lepton flavor violation. The heavy sterile neutrinos can saturate the rate only when their masses are below some 10 TeV, but in this case, the suppression of the light-neutrino masses has to be more than the ratio of the electroweak scale and the heavy-neutrino scale; i.e., more suppressed than the naive seesaw expectation. We classify the cases when this condition holds true in the minimal version of the seesaw model, showing its compatibility (1) with neutrinoless double beta rate being dominated by heavy neutrinos and (2) with any light neutrino mass spectra. The absence of excessive fine-tunings and the radiative stability of light neutrino mass matrices, together with a saturating sterile neutrino contribution, imply an upper bound on the heavy neutrino masses of about 10 GeV. We extend our analysis to the Extended seesaw scenario, where the light and the heavy sterile neutrino contributions are completely decoupled, allowing the sterile neutrinos to saturate the present experimental bound on neutrinoless double beta decay. In the models analyzed, the rate of this process is not strictly connected with the values of the light neutrino masses, and a fast transition rate is compatible with neutrinos lighter than 100 meV.     

Search for sterile neutrinos in the neutrino-4 experiment

An experimental search for sterile neutrinos has been carried out at a neutrino facility based on the SM-3 nuclear reactor in Dimitrovgrad, Russia. The movable detector with passive shielding against the external radiation may be positioned at a distance varying between 6 and 12 m from the center of the reactor. The antineutrino flux has for the first time been measured using a movable detector placed close to the antineutrino source. The accuracy of the measurements is largely restricted by the cosmic background. The results of the measurements performed at small and large distances are analyzed in terms of the sterile-neutrino model parameters Δm ₁₄ ² and sin²2θ₁₄.     

Searching for sterile neutrinos in dynamical dark energy cosmologies

We investigate how the dark energy properties change the cosmological limits on sterile neutrino parameters by using recent cosmological observations. We consider the simplest dynamical dark energy models, the wCDM model and the holographic dark energy(HDE) model, to make an analysis. The cosmological observations used in this work include the Planck 2015 CMB temperature and polarization data, the baryon acoustic oscillation data, the type Ia supernova data, the Hubble constant direct measurement data, and the Planck CMB lensing data. We find that, m_(ν,sterile)~(eff) 0.2675 eV and N_(eff) 3.5718 for ΛCDM cosmology, m_(ν,sterile)~(eff) 0.5313 eV and N_(eff) 3.5008 for wCDM cosmology, and m_(ν,sterile)~(eff) 0.1989 eV and N_(eff) 3.6701 for HDE cosmology, from the constraints of the combination of these data. Thus, without the addition of measurements of growth of structure, only upper limits on both m_(ν,sterile)~(eff) and N_(eff) can be derived, indicating that no evidence of the existence of a sterile neutrino species with e V-scale mass is found in this analysis. Moreover, compared to the ΛCDM model, in the wCDM model the limit on m_(ν,sterile)~(eff) becomes much looser, but in the HDE model the limit becomes much tighter. Therefore, the dark energy properties could significantly influence the constraint limits of sterile neutrino parameters.     

Constraints on active and sterile neutrinos in an interacting dark energy cosmology

We investigate the impacts of dark energy on constraining massive(active/sterile) neutrinos in interacting dark energy(IDE)models by using the current observations. We employ two typical IDE models, the interacting w cold dark matter(IwCDM)model and the interacting holographic dark energy(IHDE) model, to make an analysis. To avoid large-scale instability, we use the parameterized post-Friedmann approach to calculate the cosmological perturbations in the IDE models. The cosmological observational data used in this work include the Planck cosmic microwave background(CMB) anisotropies data, the baryon acoustic oscillation data, the type Ia supernovae data, the direct measurement of the Hubble constant, the weak lensing data, the redshift-space distortion data, and the CMB lensing data. We find that the dark energy properties could influence the constraint limits of active neutrino mass and sterile neutrino parameters in the IDE models. We also find that the dark energy properties could influence the constraints on the coupling strength parameter β, and a positive coupling constant, β 0, can be detected at the 2.5σ statistical significance for the IHDE+ν_s model by using the all-data combination. In addition, we also discuss theHubble tension issue in these scenarios. We find that the H_0 tension can be effectively relieved by considering massive sterile neutrinos, and in particular in the IHDE+νsmodel the H_0 tension can be reduced to be at the 1.28σ level.     

A search for sterile neutrinos with the latest cosmological observations

We report the result of a search for sterile neutrinos with the latest cosmological observations. Both cases of massless and massive sterile neutrinos are considered in the \(\Lambda \)CDM cosmology. The cosmological observations used in this work include the Planck 2015 temperature and polarization data, the baryon acoustic oscillation data, the Hubble constant direct measurement data, the Planck Sunyaev–Zeldovich cluster counts data, the Planck lensing data, and the cosmic shear data. We find that the current observational data give a hint of the existence of massless sterile neutrino (as dark radiation) at the 1.44\(\sigma \) level, and the consideration of an extra massless sterile neutrino can indeed relieve the tension between observations and improve the cosmological fit. For the case of massive sterile neutrino, the observations give a rather tight upper limit on the mass, which implies that actually a massless sterile neutrino is more favored. Our result is consistent with the recent result of neutrino oscillation experiment done by the Daya Bay and MINOS collaborations, as well as the recent result of cosmic ray experiment done by the IceCube collaboration.