Giusarma, E., Corsi, M., Archidiacono, M., de Putter, R., Melchiorri, A., Mena, O., et al. (2011). Constraints on massive sterile neutrino species from current and future cosmological data. Phys. Rev. D, 83(11), 115023–10pp.
Abstract: Sterile massive neutrinos are a natural extension of the standard model of elementary particles. The energy density of the extra sterile massive states affects cosmological measurements in an analogous way to that of active neutrino species. We perform here an analysis of current cosmological data and derive bounds on the masses of the active and the sterile neutrino states, as well as on the number of sterile states. The so-called (3 + 2) models, with three sub-eV active massive neutrinos plus two sub-eV massive sterile species, is well within the 95% CL allowed regions when considering cosmological data only. If the two extra sterile states have thermal abundances at decoupling, big bang nucleosynthesis bounds compromise the viability of (3 + 2) models. Forecasts from future cosmological data on the active and sterile neutrino parameters are also presented. Independent measurements of the neutrino mass from tritium beta-decay experiments and of the Hubble constant could shed light on sub-eV massive sterile neutrino scenarios.
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Pompa, F., Capozzi, F., Mena, O., & Sorel, M. (2022). Absolute nu Mass Measurement with the DUNE Experiment. Phys. Rev. Lett., 129(12), 121802–6pp.
Abstract: Time of flight delay in the supernova neutrino signal offers a unique tool to set model-independent constraints on the absolute neutrino mass. The presence of a sharp time structure during a first emission phase, the so-called neutronization burst in the electron neutrino flavor time distribution, makes this channel a very powerful one. Large liquid argon underground detectors will provide precision measurements of the time dependence of the electron neutrino fluxes. We derive here a new v mass sensitivity attainable at the future DUNE far detector from a future supernova collapse in our galactic neighborhood, finding a sub-eV reach under favorable scenarios. These values are competitive with those expected for laboratory direct neutrino mass searches.
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Razzaque, S., Jean, P., & Mena, O. (2010). High energy neutrinos from novae in symbiotic binaries: The case of V407 Cygni. Phys. Rev. D, 82(12), 123012–5pp.
Abstract: Detection of high-energy (>= 100 MeV) gamma rays by the Fermi Large Area Telescope from a nova in the symbiotic binary system V407 Cygni has opened the possibility of high-energy neutrino detection from this type of source. A thermonuclear explosion on the white dwarf surface sets off a nova shell in motion that expands and slows down in a dense surrounding medium provided by the red giant companion. Particles are accelerated in the shocks of the shell and interact with the surrounding medium to produce observed gamma rays. We show that proton-proton interaction, which is most likely responsible for producing gamma rays via neutral pion decay, produces >= 0:1 GeV neutrinos that can be detected by the current and future experiments at >= 10 GeV.
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Archidiacono, M., Lopez-Honorez, L., & Mena, O. (2014). Current constraints on early and stressed dark energy models and future 21 cm perspectives. Phys. Rev. D, 90(12), 123016–10pp.
Abstract: Despite the great progress of current cosmological measurements, the nature of the dominant component of the Universe, coined dark energy, is still an open question. Early dark energy is a possible candidate which may also alleviate some fine-tuning issues of the standard paradigm. Using the latest available cosmological data, we find that the 95% C.L. upper bound on the early dark energy density parameter is Tau(eDE) < 0.009. On the other hand, the dark energy component may be a stressed and inhomogeneous fluid. If this is the case, the effective sound speed and the viscosity parameters are unconstrained by current data. Future omniscopelike 21 cm surveys, combined with present cosmic microwave background data, could be able to distinguish between standard quintessence scenarios from other possible models with 2 sigma significance, assuming a non-negligible early dark energy contribution. The precision achieved on the Omega(eDE) parameter from these 21 cm probes could be below O(10%).
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Vagnozzi, S., Giusarma, E., Mena, O., Freese, K., Gerbino, M., Ho, S., et al. (2017). Unveiling nu secrets with cosmological data: Neutrino masses and mass hierarchy. Phys. Rev. D, 96(12), 123503–26pp.
Abstract: Using some of the latest cosmological data sets publicly available, we derive the strongest bounds in the literature on the sum of the three active neutrino masses, M-nu, within the assumption of a background flat Lambda CDM cosmology. In the most conservative scheme, combining Planck cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropies and baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) data, as well as the up-to-date constraint on the optical depth to reionization (tau), the tightest 95% confidence level upper bound we find is M-nu < 0.151 eV. The addition of Planck high-l polarization data, which, however, might still be contaminated by systematics, further tightens the bound to M-nu < 0.118 eV. A proper model comparison treatment shows that the two aforementioned combinations disfavor the inverted hierarchy at similar to 64% C.L. and similar to 71% C.L., respectively. In addition, we compare the constraining power of measurements of the full- shape galaxy power spectrum versus the BAO signature, from the BOSS survey. Even though the latest BOSS full-shape measurements cover a larger volume and benefit from smaller error bars compared to previous similar measurements, the analysis method commonly adopted results in their constraining power still being less powerful than that of the extracted BAO signal. Our work uses only cosmological data; imposing the constraint M-nu > 0.06 eV from oscillations data would raise the quoted upper bounds by O(0.1 sigma) and would not affect our conclusions.
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