Search

It is well-known that within the standard three flavor neutrino oscillation formalism, the Majorana phases appearing in the neutrino mixing matrix cannot have any effect on neutrino oscillation probabilities thereby evading testability at neutrino oscillation experiments. We consider an effective non-Hermitian Hamiltonian describing three flavor neutrino oscillations with the possibility of neutrino decay and demonstrate that the two Majorana phases can entangle with the off-diagonal decay terms and appear at the level of oscillation probabilities. Using the Cayley-Hamilton theorem, we derive approximate analytical expressions for three flavor neutrino oscillation probabilities in the presence of neutrino decay, taking into account matter effects. In the context of a long baseline neutrino experiment, we then analyse the impact of Majorana phases on the oscillation probabilities for different channels as well as on observables related to CP violation effects in neutrino oscillations. Finally, we discuss the effect of Majorana phases on the parameter degeneracies in the neutrino oscillation framework., Comment: 27 pages, 8 figures. Comments Welcome

We investigate the physics potential of the upcoming Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) in probing active-sterile mixing. We present analytic expressions for relevant oscillation probabilities for three active and one sterile neutrino of eV-scale mass and highlight essential parameters impacting the oscillation signals at DUNE. We then explore the space of sterile parameters as well as study their correlations among themselves and with parameters appearing in the standard framework ($\delta_{13}$ and $\theta_{23}$). We perform a combined fit for the near and far detector at DUNE using GLoBES. We consider alternative beam tune (low energy and medium energy) and runtime combinations for constraining the sterile parameter space. We show that charged current and neutral current interactions over the near and far detector at DUNE allow for an improved sensitivity for a wide range of sterile neutrino mass splittings., Comment: 27 Pages, 7 figures. Comments welcome

Amaterasu, the second most energetic ($244$ EeV) cosmic ray particle has been recently detected by the Telescope Array (TA) surface detector. The origin of the TA Amaterasu event is puzzling, as its arrival direction points back to a void in the local Universe, lacking conventional astrophysical ultra-high-energy (UHE) cosmic ray (CR) sources. Hence, we explore the possibility if this TA Amaterasu event could have originated from the decay of superheavy dark matter (SHDM) in the Milky Way. Such an origin also opens up multi-messenger detection channels in both UHE gamma-rays and UHE neutrinos. In this present work, using the TA Amaterasu event and the multi-messenger limits/sensitivities from various UHE telescopes, we place stringent constraints on the lifetime and mass of the SHDM. We find that the non-detection of the corresponding gamma-rays at the Pierre Auger Observatory (PAO) and the TA is in severe tension with the SHDM parameter space required to explain the TA Amaterasu event. Additionally, we extend the multi-messenger analysis to the future UHE gamma-ray and UHE neutrino telescopes such as PAO upgrade, GRAND 200k and IceCube-Gen2. We find that the bounds from the future neutrino telescopes will be able to compete with the present UHECR bounds. However, compared to the existing UHE gamma-ray bounds, the future PAO upgrade and the GRAND 200k gamma-ray detectors will improve the bounds on SHDM lifetime by at least one order of magnitude., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures

Ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) beyond the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) cut-off provide us with a unique opportunity to understand the universe at extreme energies. Secondary GZK photons and GZK neutrinos associated with the same interaction are indeed interconnected and render access to multi-messenger analysis of UHECRs. The GZK photon flux is heavily attenuated due to the interaction with Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and the Extra-galactic Radio Background (ERB). The present estimate of the ERB comprising of several model uncertainties together with the ARCADE2 radio results in large propagation uncertainties in the GZK photon flux. On the other hand, the weakly interacting GZK neutrino flux is unaffected by these propagation effects. In this work, we make an updated estimate of the GZK photon and GZK neutrino fluxes considering a wide variation of both the production and propagation properties of the UHECR like, the spectral index, the cut-off energy of the primary spectrum, the distribution of sources and the uncertainties in the ERB estimation. We explore the detection prospects of the GZK fluxes with various present and upcoming UHECR and UHE neutrino detectors such as Auger, TA, GRAND, ANITA, ARA, IceCube and IceCube-Gen2. The predicted fluxes are found to be beyond the reach of the current detectors. In future, proposed IceCube-Gen2, Auger upgrade and GRAND experiments will have the sensitivity to the predicted GZK photon and GZK neutrino fluxes. Such detection can put constraints on the UHECR source properties and the propagation effects due to the ERB. We also propose an indirect limit on the GZK photon flux using the neutrino-photon connection for any future detection of GZK neutrinos by the IceCube-Gen2 detector. We find this limit to be consistent with our GZK flux predictions., Comment: Accepted for publication in JCAP

In the context of two flavour neutrino oscillations, it is understood that the $2\times 2$ mixing matrix is parameterized by one angle and a Majorana phase. However, this phase does not impact the oscillation probabilities in vacuum or in matter with constant density. Interestingly, the Majorana phase becomes relevant when we describe neutrino oscillations along with neutrino decay. This is due to the fact that effective Hamiltonian has Hermitian and anti-Hermitian components which cannot be simultaneously diagonalized (resulting in decay eigenstates being different from the mass eigenstates). We consider the $\cal PT$ symmetric non-Hermitian Hamiltonian describing two flavour neutrino case and study the violation of Leggett-Garg Inequalities (LGI) in this context for the first time. We demonstrate that temporal correlations in the form of LGI allow us to probe whether neutrinos are Dirac or Majorana. We elucidate the role played by the mixing and decay parameters on the extent of violation of LGI. We emphasize that for optimized choice of parameters, the difference in $K_4$ ($K_3$) for Dirac and Majorana case is $\sim 15\%$ ($\sim 10\%$)., Comment: 17 pages and 8 figures. Comments welcome

An important goal of current and future long baseline neutrino oscillation experiments pertains to determination of the Dirac-type leptonic $CP$ phase, $\delta_{13}$. We consider the new physics scenario of an eV scale sterile neutrino along with three active neutrinos and demonstrate the impact on the $CP$ and $T$ violation measurements in neutrino oscillations. We address the question of disentangling the intrinsic effects from extrinsic effects in the standard three neutrino paradigm as well as the scenario with added light sterile neutrino. We define a metric to isolate the two kinds of effects and our approach is general in the sense that it is independent of the choice of $\delta_{13}$. We study the role of different appearance and disappearance channels which can contribute to CP and T violation measurements. We perform the analysis for different long baseline experiments which have different detection capabilities such as Water Cherenkov (WC) and Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC)., Comment: v2: revised version, 36 pages, 13 figures, 10 tables. Comments welcome

Neutrinos, due to their weakly interacting nature, provide us with a unique opportunity to test foundations of quantum mechanics over macroscopic distances. There has been considerable theoretical and experimental interest in examining the extent of violation of Leggett-Garg inequalities (LGI) in the context of neutrino flavour oscillations. While it is established that neutrino oscillations occur due to mass and mixing among the three generations of neutrinos, sub-dominant effects due to physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) are not yet ruled out. As we are entering the precision era in neutrino physics, it is possible that some of these effects may leave an imprint on data. Thus, it is worthwhile to investigate different physics scenarios beyond the SM and study their impact on oscillation probabilities. In the present work, we invoke damping effects (including decoherence and decay) on oscillation probabilities and study their implications on the LGI., Comment: v2: typos corrected and 2 new references included

We formulate an alternative approach based on unitarity triangles to describe neutrino oscillations in presence of non-standard interactions (NSI). Using perturbation theory, we derive the expression for the oscillation probability in case of NSI and cast it in terms of the three independent parameters of the leptonic unitarity triangle (LUT). The form invariance of the probability expression (even in presence of new physics scenario as long as the mixing matrix is unitary) facilitates a neat geometric view of neutrino oscillations in terms of LUT. We examine the regime of validity of perturbative expansions in the NSI case and make comparisons with approximate expressions existing in literature. We uncover some interesting dependencies on NSI terms while studying the evolution of LUT parameters and the Jarlskog invariant. Interestingly, the geometric approach based on LUT allows us to express the oscillation probabilities for a given pair of neutrino flavours in terms of only three (and not four) degrees of freedom which are related to the geometric properties (sides and angles) of the triangle. Moreover, the LUT parameters are invariant under rephasing transformations and independent of the parameterization adopted., Comment: Matches the version accepted for publication in JHEP

Current long-baseline neutrino-oscillation experiments such as NO$\nu$A and T2K are mainly sensitive to physics in the neighbourhood of the first oscillation maximum of the $\nu_\mu \to \nu_e$ oscillation probability. The future Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) utilizes a wide-band beam tune optimized for CP violation sensitivity that fully covers the region of the first maxima and part of the second. In the present study, we elucidate the role of second oscillation maximum in addressing issues pertaining to unknowns in the standard three flavour paradigm. We consider a new DUNE beam tune optimized for coverage of the region of the second oscillation maxima which could be realized using proposed accelerator upgrades that provide multi-MW of power at proton energies of 8 GeV. We find that addition of the multi-MW 8 GeV beam to DUNE wide-band running leads to modest improvement in sensitivity to CP violation, mass hierarchy, the octant of $\theta_{23}$ as well as the resolution of $\delta$ and the Jarlskog invariant. Significant improvements to the DUNE neutrino energy resolution yield a much larger improvement in performance. We conclude that the standard DUNE wide-band beam when coupled with excellent detector resolution capabilities is sufficient to resolve $\delta$ to better than $\sim 12^\circ$ for all values of $\delta$ in a decade of running. For second maxima (8 GeV 3MW) beam running concurrently with the standard wide-band (80 GeV 2.2 MW) beam for 5 of the 10 years, it is found that $\delta$ can be further resolved better than $\sim 10^\circ$ for all values of $\delta$., Comment: to appear in Phys. Rev. D

Neutrino oscillations occur due to non-zero masses and mixings and most importantly they are believed to maintain quantum coherence even over astrophysical length scales. In the present study, we explore the quantumness of three flavour neutrino oscillations by studying the extent of violation of Leggett-Garg inequalities (LGI) if non-standard interactions are taken into account. We report an enhancement in violation of LGI with respect to the standard scenario for appropriate choice of NSI parameters., Comment: v2 : to appear in J. Phys. G

Even though neutrino oscillations have been conclusively established, there are a few unanswered questions pertaining to leptonic Charge Parity violation (CPV), mass hierarchy (MH) and $\theta_{23}$ octant degeneracy. Addressing these questions is of paramount importance at the current and future neutrino experiments including the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) which has a baseline of 1300 km. In the standard mode, DUNE is expected to run with a {\textit{low energy}} (LE) tuned beam which peaks around the first oscillation maximum ($2-3$ GeV) (and then sharply falls off as we go to higher energies). However, the wide band nature of the beam available at long baseline neutrino facility (LBNF) allows for the flexibility in utilizing beam tunes that are well-suited at higher energies as well. In this work, we utilize a beam that provides high statistics at higher energies which is referred to as the {\textit{medium energy}} (ME) beam. This opens up the possibility of exploring not only the usual oscillation channels but also the $\nu_{\mu} \to \nu_{\tau}$ oscillation channel which was otherwise not accessible. Our goal is to find an optimal combination of beam tune and runtime (with the total runtime held fixed) distributed in neutrino and antineutrino mode that leads to an improvement in the sensitivities of these parameters at DUNE. In our analysis, we incorporate all the three channels ($\nu_{\mu} \to \nu_{e}, \nu_{\mu} \to \nu_{\mu}, \nu_{\mu} \to \nu_{\tau}$) and develop an understanding of their relative contributions in sensitivities at the level of $\Delta \chi^2$. Finally, we obtain the preferred combination of runtime using both the beam tunes as well as neutrino and antineutrino mode that lead to enhanced sensitivity to the current unknowns in neutrino oscillation physics i.e., CPV, MH and $\theta_{23}$ octant., Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures. v2 : to appear in Phys. Rev. D

The muon decay-at-rest ($\mu$-DAR) facility provides us with an ideal platform to probe purely muonic charged-current nonstandard neutrino interactions (NSIs). We propose to probe this class of NSI effects using antineutrinos from a $\mu$-DAR source in conjunction with neutrinos from the future Tokai to Kamioka superbeam experiment with megaton Hyper Kamiokande detector (T2HK). Even though muonic NSIs are absent in neutrino production at T2HK, we show that our proposed hybrid setup comprising $\mu$-DAR and T2HK helps in alleviating the parameter degeneracies that can arise in data. Analytic considerations reveal that the oscillation probability is most sensitive to the NSI parameter in the $\mu$-e sector. For this parameter, we show that the $\mu$-DAR setup can improve on the existing bounds down to around 0.01, especially when the data are combined with neutrino data from T2HK experiment due to the lifting of parameter degeneracies. The high precision with which $\mu$-DAR can measure $\delta_{\rm{CP}}$ is shown to be robust even in the presence of the considered NSIs. Finally, we show that the combination of $\mu$-DAR along with T2HK can also be used to put mild constraints on the NSI phase in the vicinity of the maximal CP-violating value for the chosen benchmark value of $\varepsilon^{\mu e}_{\mu e}=0.01$., Comment: Matches version published in Phys. Rev. D

This report summarizes the present status of neutrino non-standard interactions (NSI). After a brief overview, several aspects of NSIs are discussed, including connection to neutrino mass models, model-building and phenomenology of large NSI with both light and heavy mediators, NSI phenomenology in both short- and long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments, neutrino cross-sections, complementarity of NSI with other low- and high-energy experiments, fits with neutrino oscillation and scattering data, DUNE sensitivity to NSI, effective field theory of NSI, as well as the relevance of NSI to dark matter and cosmology. We also discuss the open questions and interesting future directions that can be pursued by the community at large. This report is based on talks and discussions during the Neutrino Theory Network NSI workshop held at Washington University in St. Louis from May 29-31, 2019 (https://indico.cern.ch/event/812851/), Comment: 104 pages; minor revision

The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a leading experiment in neutrino physics which is presently under construction. DUNE aims to measure the yet unknown parameters in the three flavour oscillation scenario which includes discovery of leptonic CP violation, determination of the mass hierarchy and determination of the octant of $\theta_{23}$. Additionally, the ancillary goals of DUNE include probing the sub-dominant effects induced by new physics. A widely studied new physics scenario is that of nonstandard neutrino interactions (NSI) in propagation which impacts the oscillations of neutrinos. We consider some of the essential NSI parameters impacting the oscillation signals at DUNE and explore the space of NSI parameters as well as study their correlations among themselves and with the yet unknown CP violating phase, $\delta$ appearing in the standard paradigm. The experiment utilizes a wide band beam and provides us with a unique opportunity to utilize different beam tunes at DUNE. We demonstrate that combining information from different beam tunes (low energy, LE and medium energy, ME) available at DUNE impacts the ability to probe some of these parameters and leads to altering the allowed regions in two-dimensional space of parameters considered., Comment: 20 pages, 13 figures. Typo corrected; Fig. 9 improved; Text of sec. IV changed slightly; To appear in PRD

Pancharatnam phase was discovered in the context of polarization optics in nineteen fifties. However, its full realization in quantum many-body systems still eludes us. This is primarily due to the fact that electron spin is not easily tunable. In the present proposal, we suggest that edge states of quantum spin Hall effect (QSHE) in conjunction with spin polarized electrodes (SPE) provide us with a unique opportunity to explore the Pancharatnam phase. We demonstrate the possibility of generating and detecting the multi-electron version of this phase that can as well be interpreted as multi-particle Aharonov-Bohm (A-B) effect in spin space arising solely due to spin dynamics. We further show that our proposed set-up leads to a robust interference pattern which survives orbital dephasing., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Comments welcome !

The proposed Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) utilizes a wide-band on-axis tunable muon-(anti)neutrino beam with a baseline of 1300 km to search for CP violation with high precision. Given the long baseline, DUNE is also sensitive to effects due to non-standard neutrino interactions (NSI) which can interfere with the standard 3-flavor oscillation paradigm. In this Letter, we exploit the tunability of the DUNE neutrino beam over a wide-range of energies and utilize a new theoretical metric to devise an experimental strategy for separating oscillation effects due to NSI from the standard 3-flavor oscillation scenario. Using our metric, we obtain an optimal combination of beam tunes and distribution of run times in neutrino and anti-neutrino modes that would enable DUNE to isolate new physics scenarios from the standard. To the best of our knowledge, our strategy is entirely new and has not been reported elsewhere., Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, comments welcome

One of the fundamental parameters entering neutrino oscillation framework is the leptonic CP phase $\delta_{13}$ and its measurement is an important goal of the planned long baseline experiments. It should be noted that ordinary matter effects complicate the determination of this parameter and there are studies in literature that deal with separation of intrinsic versus extrinsic CP violation. It is important to investigate the consequences of new physics effects that can not only hamper the measurement of $\delta_{13}$, but also impact the consequences of discrete symmetries such as CP, T and unitarity in different oscillation channels. In the present work, we explore these discrete symmetries and implications on unitarity in presence of two new physics scenarios (non-standard interaction in propagation and presence of sterile neutrinos) that serve as good examples of going beyond the standard scenario in different directions. We uncover the impact of new physics scenarios on disentangling intrinsic and extrinsic CP violation., Comment: To appear in PRD