Anamiati, G., Fonseca, R. M., & Hirsch, M. (2018). Quasi-Dirac neutrino oscillations. Phys. Rev. D, 97(9), 095008–16pp.
Abstract: Dirac neutrino masses require two distinct neutral Weyl spinors per generation, with a special arrangement of masses and interactions with charged leptons. Once this arrangement is perturbed, lepton number is no longer conserved and neutrinos become Majorana particles. If these lepton number violating perturbations are small compared to the Dirac mass terms, neutrinos are quasi-Dirac particles. Alternatively, this scenario can be characterized by the existence of pairs of neutrinos with almost degenerate masses, and a lepton mixing matrix which has 12 angles and 12 phases. In this work we discuss the phenomenology of quasi-Dirac neutrino oscillations and derive limits on the relevant parameter space from various experiments. In one parameter perturbations of the Dirac limit, very stringent bounds can be derived on the mass splittings between the almost degenerate pairs of neutrinos. However, we also demonstrate that with suitable changes to the lepton mixing matrix, limits on such mass splittings are much weaker, or even completely absent. Finally, we consider the possibility that the mass splittings are too small to be measured and discuss bounds on the new, nonstandard lepton mixing angles from current experiments for this case.
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Anamiati, G., Castillo-Felisola, O., Fonseca, R. M., Helo, J. C., & Hirsch, M. (2018). High-dimensional neutrino masses. J. High Energy Phys., 12(12), 066–26pp.
Abstract: For Majorana neutrino masses the lowest dimensional operator possible is the Weinberg operator at d = 5. Here we discuss the possibility that neutrino masses originate from higher dimensional operators. Specifically, we consider all tree-level decompositions of the d = 9, d = 11 and d = 13 neutrino mass operators. With renormalizable interactions only, we find 18 topologies and 66 diagrams for d = 9, and 92 topologies plus 504 diagrams at the d = 11 level. At d = 13 there are already 576 topologies and 4199 diagrams. However, among all these there are only very few genuine neutrino mass models: At d = (9, 11, 13) we find only (2,2,2) genuine diagrams and a total of (2,2,6) models. Here, a model is considered genuine at level d if it automatically forbids lower order neutrino masses without the use of additional symmetries. We also briefly discuss how neutrino masses and angles can be easily fitted in these high-dimensional models.
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Arguelles, C. A., Palomares-Ruiz, S., Schneider, A., Wille, L., & Yuan, T. L. (2018). Unified atmospheric neutrino passing fractions for large-scale neutrino telescopes. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 07(7), 047–41pp.
Abstract: The atmospheric neutrino passing fraction, or self-veto, is defined as the probability for an atmospheric neutrino not to be accompanied by a detectable muon from the same cosmic-ray air shower. Building upon previous work, we propose a redefinition of the passing fractions by unifying the treatment for muon and electron neutrinos. Several approximations have also been removed. This enables performing detailed estimations of the uncertainties in the passing fractions from several inputs: muon losses, cosmic-ray spectrum, hadronic-interaction models and atmosphere-density profiles. We also study the passing fractions under variations of the detector configuration: depth, surrounding medium and muon veto trigger probability. The calculation exhibits excellent agreement with passing fractions obtained from Monte Carlo simulations. Finally, we provide a general software framework to implement this veto technique for all large-scale neutrino observatories.
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Argyropoulos, T., Catalan-Lasheras, N., Grudiev, A., Mcmonagle, G., Rodriguez-Castro, E., Syrachev, I., et al. (2018). Design, fabrication, and high-gradient testing of an X-band, traveling-wave accelerating structure milled from copper halves. Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams, 21(6), 061001–11pp.
Abstract: A prototype 11.994 GHz, traveling-wave accelerating structure for the Compact Linear Collider has been built, using the novel technique of assembling the structure from milled halves. The use of milled halves has many advantages when compared to a structure made from individual disks. These include the potential for a reduction in cost, because there are fewer parts, as well as a greater freedom in choice of joining technology because there are no rf currents across the halves' joint. Here we present the rf design and fabrication of the prototype structure, followed by the results of the high-power test and post-test surface analysis. During high-power testing the structure reached an unloaded gradient of 100 MV/m at a rf breakdown rate of less than 1.5 x 10(-5) breakdowns/pulse/m with a 200 ns pulse. This structure has been designed for the CLIC testing program but construction from halves can be advantageous in a wide variety of applications.
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T2K Collaboration(Abe, K. et al), Cervera-Villanueva, A., Izmaylov, A., Novella, P., Sorel, M., & Stamoulis, P. (2018). Measurement of the single pi(0) production rate in neutral current neutrino interactions on water. Phys. Rev. D, 97(3), 032002–13pp.
Abstract: The single pi(0) production rate in neutral current neutrino interactions on water in a neutrino beam with a peak neutrino energy of 0.6 GeV has been measured using the empty set, one of the subdetectors of the T2K near detector. The production rate was measured for data taking periods when the Pempty setD contained water (2.64 x 10(20) protons-on-target) and also periods without water (3.49 x 10(20) protons-on-target). A measurement of the neutral current single pi(0) production rate on water is made using appropriate subtraction of the production rate with water in from the rate with water out of the target region. The subtraction analysis yields 106 +/- 41 +/- 69 signal events where the uncertainties are statistical (stat.) and systematic (sys.) respectively. This is consistent with the prediction of 157 events from the nominal simulation. The measured to expected ratio is 0.68 +/- 0.26(stat) +/- 0.44(sys) +/- 0.12(flux). The nominal simulation uses a flux integrated cross section of 7.63 x 10(-39) cm(2) per nucleon with an average neutrino interaction energy of 1.3 GeV.
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