Abstract: The low energy neutrino factory has been proposed as a very sensitive setup for future searches for CP violation and matter effects. Here we study how its performance is affected when the experimental specifications of the setup are varied. Most notably, we have considered the addition of the “platinum'' nu(mu) -> nu(e) channel. We find that, while theoretically the extra channel provides very useful complementary information and helps to lift degeneracies, its practical usefulness is lost when considering realistic background levels. Conversely, an increase in statistics in the ”golden'' nu(mu) -> nu(e) channel and, to some extent, an improvement in the energy resolution, lead to an important increase in the performance of the facility, given the rich energy dependence of the "golden'' channel at these energies. We show that a low energy neutrino factory with a baseline of 1300 km, muon energy of 4.5 GeV, and either a 20 kton totally active scintillating detector or 100 kton liquid argon detector, can have outstanding sensitivity to the neutrino oscillation parameters theta(13), delta, and the mass hierarchy. For our estimated exposure of 2: 8 x 10(23) kton x decays per muon polarity, the low energy neutrino factory has sensitivity to theta(13) and delta for sin(2)(2 theta(13)) > 10(-4) and to the mass hierarchy for sin(2)(2 theta(13)) > 10(-3)

Abstract: We illustrate how recently improved low-redshift cosmological measurements can tighten constraints on neutrino properties. In particular we examine the impact of the assumed cosmological model on the constraints. We first consider the new HST H-0 = 74.2 +/- 3.6 measurement by Riess et al. (2009) and the sigma(8)(Omega(m)/0.25)(0.41) = 0.832 +/- 0.033 constraint from Rozo et al. (2009) derived from the SDSS maxBCG Cluster Catalog. In a ACDM model and when combined with WMAP5 constraints, these low-redshift measurements constrain Sigma m(v) < 0.4 eV at the 95% confidence level. This bound does not relax when allowing for the running of the spectral index or for primordial tensor perturbations. When adding also Supernovae and BAO constraints, we obtain a 95% upper limit of Sigma m(v) < 0.3eV. We test the sensitivity of the neutrino mass constraint to the assumed expansion history by both allowing a dark energy equation of state parameter w not equal -1 and by studying a model with coupling between dark energy and dark matter, which allows for variation in w, Omega(k), and dark coupling strength xi. When combining CMB, H-0 and the SDSS LRG halo power spectrum from Reid et al. 2009, we find that in this very general model, Sigma m(v) < 0.51 eV with 95% confidence. If we allow the number of relativistic species N-rel to vary in a ACDM model with Sigma m(v) = 0, we find N-rel = 3.76(-0.68)(+0.63)(+1.38 -1.21) for the 68% and 95% confidence intervals. We also report prior-independent constraints, which are in excellent agreement with the Bayesian constraints.

Abstract: Probing the dark matter clustering and its evolution with weak lensing surveys constitutes a unique tool to constrain interacting dark energy models. We focus here on weak lensing forecasts from future Euclid and LSST-like surveys combined with the expected results from the ongoing Planck cosmic microwave background satellite experiment. We find that these future data could constrain the dimensionless coupling between dark matter and dark energy to be smaller than a few x 10(-2), improving the CMB-only constraint by at least 2 orders of magnitude. We also show that coupled cosmologies can substantially alter the constraints on cosmological parameters obtained from CMB experiments under the assumption of noninteracting cosmologies unless weak lensing data is considered.