Abstract: Reactor neutrino experiments provide a rich environment for the study of axionlike particles (ALPs). Using the intense photon flux produced in the nuclear reactor core, these experiments have the potential to probe ALPs with masses below 10MeV. We explore the feasibility of these searches by considering ALPs produced through Primakoff and Compton-like processes as well as nuclear transitions. These particles can subsequently interact with the material of a nearby detector via inverse Primakoff and inverse Compton-like scatterings, via axio-electric absorption, or they can decay into photon or electron-positron pairs. We demonstrate that reactor-based neutrino experiments have a high potential to test ALP-photon couplings and masses, currently probed only by cosmological and astrophysical observations, thus providing complementary laboratory-based searches. We furthermore show how reactor facilities will be able to test previously unexplored regions in the similar to MeV ALP mass range and ALP-electron couplings of the order of gaee similar to 10(-8) as well as ALP-nucleon couplings of the order of g (1) ann similar to 10(-9), testing regions beyond TEXONO and Borexino limits.

Abstract: We study the contribution of nu(e) -> nu(tau) -> tau -> μtransitions to the wrong-sign muon sample of the golden channel of the Neutrino Factory. Muons from tau decays are not really a background, since they contain information from the oscillation signal, and represent a small fraction of the sample. However, if not properly handled they introduce serious systematic error, in particular if the detector/analysis are sensitive to muons of low energy. This systematic effect is particularly troublesome for large theta(13) >= 1 degrees and prevents the use of the Neutrino Factory as a precision facility for large theta(13). Such a systematic error disappears if the tau contribution to the golden muon sample is taken into account. The fact that the fluxes of the Neutrino Factory are exactly calculable permits the knowledge of the tau sample due to the nu(e) -> nu(tau) oscillation. We then compute the contribution to the muon sample arising from this sample in terms of the apparent muon energy. This requires the computation of a migration matrix M-ij which describes the contributions of the tau neutrinos of a given energy E-i, to the muon neutrinos of an apparent energy E-j. We demonstrate that applying M-ij to the data permits the full correction of the otherwise intolerable systematic error.

Abstract: We propose that dark matter is stable as a consequence of an accidental Z(2) that results from a flavour symmetry group which is the double-cover group of the symmetry group of one of the regular geometric solids. Although model-dependent, the phenomenology resembles that of a generic “inert Higgs” dark matter scheme.

Abstract: Massive neutrinos demand to ask whether they are Dirac or Majorana particles. Majorana neutrinos are an irrefutable proof of physics beyond the Standard Model. Neutrinoless double electron capture is not a process but a virtual Delta L = 2 mixing between a parent (A)Z atom and a daughter (A)(Z – 2) excited atom with two electron holes. As a mixing between two neutral atoms and the observable signal in terms of emitted two-hole X-rays, the strategy, experimental signature and background are different from neutrinoless double beta decay. The mixing is resonantly enhanced for almost degeneracy and, under these conditions, there is no irreducible background from the standard two-neutrino channel. We reconstruct the natural time history of a nominally stable parent atom since its production either by nature or in the laboratory. After the time periods of atom oscillations and the decay of the short-lived daughter atom, at observable times the relevant 'stationary" states are the mixed metastable long-lived state and the non-orthogonal short-lived excited state, as well as the ground state of the daughter atom. We find that they have a natural population inversion which is most appropriate for exploiting the bosonic nature of the observed atomic transitions radiation. Among different observables of the atom Majorana mixing, we include the enhanced rate of stimulated X-ray emission from the long-lived metastable state by a high-intensity X-ray beam: a gain factor of 100 can be envisaged at current XFEL facilities. On the other hand, the historical population of the daughter atom ground state can be probed by exciting it with a current pulsed optical laser, showing the characteristic absorption lines: the whole population can be excited in a shorter time than typical pulse duration.

Abstract: We propose a left-right symmetric electroweak extension of the Standard Model based on the Delta (27) family symmetry. The masses of all electrically charged Standard Model fermions lighter than the top quark are induced by a Universal Seesaw mechanism mediated by exotic fermions. The top quark is the only Standard Model fermion to get mass directly from a tree level renormalizable Yukawa interaction, while neutrinos are unique in that they get calculable radiative masses through a low-scale seesaw mechanism. The scheme has generalized μ- tau symmetry and leads to a restricted range of neutrino oscillations parameters, with a nonzero neutrinoless double beta decay amplitude lying at the upper ranges generically associated to normal and inverted neutrino mass ordering.