|
|
Caputo, A., Hernandez, P., Lopez-Pavon, J., & Salvado, J. (2017). The seesaw portal in testable models of neutrino masses. J. High Energy Phys., 06(6), 112–20pp.
Abstract: A Standard Model extension with two Majorana neutrinos can explain the measured neutrino masses and mixings, and also account for the matter-antimatter asymmetry in a region of parameter space that could be testable in future experiments. The testability of the model relies to some extent on its minimality. In this paper we address the possibility that the model might be extended by extra generic new physics which we parametrize in terms of a low-energy effective theory. We consider the effects of the operators of the lowest dimensionality, d = 5, and evaluate the upper bounds on the coefficients so that the predictions of the minimal model are robust. One of the operators gives a new production mechanism for the heavy neutrinos at LHC via higgs decays. The higgs can decay to a pair of such neutrinos that, being long-lived, leave a powerful signal of two displaced vertices. We estimate the LHC reach to this process.
|
|
|
|
Donini, A., Palomares-Ruiz, S., & Salvado, J. (2019). Neutrino tomography of Earth. Nat. Phys., 15(1), 37–40.
Abstract: Cosmic-ray interactions with the atmosphere produce a flux of neutrinos in all directions with energies extending above the TeV scale(1). The Earth is not a fully transparent medium for neutrinos with energies above a few TeV, as the neutrinonucleon cross-section is large enough to make the absorption probability non-negligible(2). Since absorption depends on energy and distance travelled, studying the distribution of the TeV atmospheric neutrinos passing through the Earth offers an opportunity to infer its density profiles(3-7). This has never been done, however, due to the lack of relevant data. Here we perform a neutrino-based tomography of the Earth using actual data-one-year of through-going muon atmospheric neutrino data collected by the IceCube telescope(8). Using only weak interactions, in a way that is completely independent of gravitational measurements, we are able to determine the mass of the Earth and its core, its moment of inertia, and to establish that the core is denser than the mantle. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of this approach to study the Earth's internal structure, which is complementary to traditional geophysics methods. Neutrino tomography could become more competitive as soon as more statistics is available, provided that the sources of systematic uncertainties are fully under control.
|
|
|
|
Esteban, I., Mena, O., & Salvado, J. (2022). Nonstandard neutrino cosmology dilutes the lensing anomaly. Phys. Rev. D, 106(8), 083516–9pp.
Abstract: Despite the impressive success of the standard cosmological model, several anomalies defy its triumph. Among them is the so-called lensing anomaly: The Planck satellite observes stronger cosmic microwave background (CMB) gravitational lensing than expected. The role of neutrinos in this anomaly has been mostly overlooked, despite their key role in CMB lensing, because in the standard scenario they tend to increase the tension. Here, we show that this strongly depends on the assumed neutrino equation of state. We demonstrate that if neutrinos have yet undiscovered long-range interactions, the lensing pattern is significantly affected, rendering the lensing anomaly as a statistical fluctuation. Our results, thus, open up a window to link anomalous CMB lensing with present and future cosmological, astrophysical, and laboratory measurements of neutrino properties.
|
|
|
|
Caputo, A., Hernandez, P., Kekic, M., Lopez-Pavon, J., & Salvado, J. (2017). The seesaw path to leptonic CP violation. Eur. Phys. J. C, 77(4), 258–7pp.
Abstract: Future experiments such as SHiP and highintensity e(+)e(-) colliders will have a superb sensitivity to heavy Majorana neutrinos with masses below M-Z. We show that the measurement of the mixing to electrons and muons of one such state could establish the existence of CP violating phases in the neutrino mixing matrix, in the context of low-scale seesaw models. We quantify in the minimal model the CP reach of these future experiments, and demonstrate that CP violating phases in the mixing matrix could be established at 5 sigma CL in a very significant fraction of parameter space.
|
|
|
|
Salvado, J., Mena, O., Palomares-Ruiz, S., & Rius, N. (2017). Non-standard interactions with high-energy atmospheric neutrinos at IceCube. J. High Energy Phys., 01(1), 141–30pp.
Abstract: Non-standard interactions in the propagation of neutrinos in matter can lead to significant deviations from expectations within the standard neutrino oscillation framework and atmospheric neutrino detectors have been considered to set constraints. However, most previous works have focused on relatively low-energy atmospheric neutrino data. Here, we consider the one-year high-energy through-going muon data in IceCube, which has been already used to search for light sterile neutrinos, to constrain new interactions in the μtau-sector. In our analysis we include several systematic uncertainties on both, the atmospheric neutrino flux and on the detector properties, which are accounted for via nuisance parameters. After considering different primary cosmic-ray spectra and hadronic interaction models, we improve over previous analysis by using the latest data and showing that systematics currently affect very little the bound on the off-diagonal epsilon(mu tau), with the 90% credible interval given by -6.0 x 10(-3) < epsilon(mu tau) < 5.4 x 10(-3), comparable to previous results. In addition, we also estimate the expected sensitivity after 10 years of collected data in IceCube and study the precision at which non-standard parameters could be determined for the case of epsilon(mu tau) near its current bound.
|
|
|
|
Bertolez-Martinez, T., Arguelles, C., Esteban, I., Lopez-Pavon, J., Martinez-Soler, I., & Salvado, J. (2023). IceCube and the origin of ANITA-IV events. J. High Energy Phys., 07(7), 005–24pp.
Abstract: Recently, the ANITA collaboration announced the detection of new, unsettling upgoing Ultra-High-Energy (UHE) events. Understanding their origin is pressing to ensure success of the incoming UHE neutrino program. In this work, we study their internal consistency and the implications of the lack of similar events in IceCube. We introduce a generic, simple parametrization to study the compatibility between these two observatories in Standard Model-like and Beyond Standard Model scenarios: an incoming flux of particles that interact with Earth nucleons with cross section sigma, producing particle showers along with long-lived particles that decay with lifetime iota and generate a shower that explains ANITA observations. We find that the ANITA angular distribution imposes significant constraints, and when including null observations from IceCube only iota similar to 10(-3)-10(-2) s and sigma similar to 10(-33) -10(-32) cm(2) can explain the data. This hypothesis is testable with future IceCube data. Finally, we discuss a specific model that can realize this scenario. Our analysis highlights the importance of simultaneous observations by high-energy optical neutrino telescopes and new UHE radio detectors to uncover cosmogenic neutrinos or discover new physics.
|
|
|
|
Esteban, I., Lopez-Pavon, J., Martinez-Soler, I., & Salvado, J. (2020). Looking at the axionic dark sector with ANITA. Eur. Phys. J. C, 80(3), 259–9pp.
Abstract: The ANITA experiment has recently observed two anomalous events emerging from well below the horizon. Even though they are consistent with tau cascades, a high-energy Standard Model or Beyond the Standard Model explanation is challenging and in tension with other experiments. We study under which conditions the reflection of generic radio pulses can reproduce these signals. Furthermore, we propose that these pulses can be resonantly produced in the ionosphere via axion-photon conversion. This naturally explains the direction and polarization of the events and avoids other experimental bounds.
|
|
|
|
Barenboim, G., & Salvado, J. (2017). Cosmology and CPT violating neutrinos. Eur. Phys. J. C, 77(11), 766–18pp.
Abstract: The combination charge conjugation-parity-time reversal (CPT) is a fundamental symmetry in our current understanding of nature. As such, testing CPT violation is a strongly motivated path to explore new physics. In this paper we study CPT violation in the neutrino sector, giving for the first time a bound, for a fundamental particle, in the CPT violating particle-antiparticle gravitational mass difference. We argue that cosmology is nowadays the only data sensitive to CPT violation for the neutrino-antineutrino mass splitting and we use the latest data release from Planck combined with the current baryonic-acoustic-oscillation measurement to perform a full cosmological analysis. To show the potential of the future experiments we also show the results for Euclid, a next generation large scale structure experiment.
|
|
|
|
IceCube Collaboration(Aartsen, M. G. et al), & Salvado, J. (2016). Searches for Sterile Neutrinos with the IceCube Detector. Phys. Rev. Lett., 117(7), 071801–9pp.
Abstract: The IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole has measured the atmospheric muon neutrino spectrum as a function of zenith angle and energy in the approximate 320 GeV to 20 TeV range, to search for the oscillation signatures of light sterile neutrinos. No evidence for anomalous nu(mu) or (nu) over bar (mu) disappearance is observed in either of two independently developed analyses, each using one year of atmospheric neutrino data. New exclusion limits are placed on the parameter space of the 3 + 1 model, in which muon antineutrinos experience a strong Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein-resonant oscillation. The exclusion limits extend to sin(2)2 theta(24) <= 0.02 at Delta m(2) similar to 0.3 eV(2) at the 90% confidence level. The allowed region from global analysis of appearance experiments, including LSND and MiniBooNE, is excluded at approximately the 99% confidence level for the global best-fit value of vertical bar U-e4 vertical bar(2).
|
|
|
|
Bai, Y., Lu, R., Lu, S. D., Salvado, J., & Stefanek, B. A. (2016). Three twin neutrinos: Evidence from LSND and MiniBooNE. Phys. Rev. D, 93(7), 073004–11pp.
Abstract: We construct a neutrino model of three twin neutrinos in light of the neutrino appearance excesses at LSND and MiniBooNE. The model, which includes a twin parity, naturally predicts identical lepton Yukawa structures in the Standard Model and the twin sectors. As a result, a universal mixing angle controls all three twin neutrino couplings to the Standard Model charged leptons. This mixing angle is predicted to be the ratio of the electroweak scale over the composite scale of the Higgs boson and has the right order of magnitude to fit the data. The heavy twin neutrinos decay within the experimental lengths into active neutrinos plus a long-lived Majoron and can provide a good fit, at around the 4 sigma confidence level, to the LSND and MiniBooNE appearance data while simultaneously satisfying the disappearance constraints. For the Majorana neutrino case, the fact that neutrinos have a larger scattering cross section than antineutrinos provides a natural explanation to MiniBooNE's observation of a larger antineutrino appearance excess.
|
|
