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Valle, J. W. F. (2015). Status and implications of neutrino masses: a brief panorama. Int. J. Mod. Phys. A, 30(13), 1530034–13pp.
Abstract: With the historic discovery of the Higgs boson our picutre of particle physics would have been complete were it nor for the neutrino sector and cosmology. I briefly discuss the role of neutrino masses and mixing upon gauge coupling unification, electroweak breaking and the flavor sector. Time is ripe for new discoveries such as leptonic CP violation, charged lepton flavor violation and neutrinoless double beta decay. Neutrinos could also play a role is elucidating the nature of dark matter and cosmic inflation.
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Gariazzo, S., Archidiacono, M., de Salas, P. F., Mena, O., Ternes, C. A., & Tortola, M. (2018). Neutrino masses and their ordering: global data, priors and models. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 03(3), 011–22pp.
Abstract: We present a full Bayesian analysis of the combination of current neutrino oscillation, neutrinoless double beta decay and Cosmic Microwave Background observations. Our major goal is to carefully investigate the possibility to single out one neutrino mass ordering, namely Normal Ordering or Inverted Ordering, with current data. Two possible parametrizations (three neutrino masses versus the lightest neutrino mass plus the two oscillation mass splittings) and priors (linear versus logarithmic) are exhaustively examined. We find that the preference for NO is only driven by neutrino oscillation data. Moreover, the values of the Bayes factor indicate that the evidence for NO is strong only when the scan is performed over the three neutrino masses with logarithmic priors; for every other combination of parameterization and prior, the preference for NO is only weak. As a by-product of our Bayesian analyses, we are able to (a) compare the Bayesian bounds on the neutrino mixing parameters to those obtained by means of frequentist approaches, finding a very good agreement; (b) determine that the lightest neutrino mass plus the two mass splittings parametrization, motivated by the physical observables, is strongly preferred over the three neutrino mass eigenstates scan and (c) find that logarithmic priors guarantee a weakly-to-moderately more efficient sampling of the parameter space. These results establish the optimal strategy to successfully explore the neutrino parameter space, based on the use of the oscillation mass splittings and a logarithmic prior on the lightest neutrino mass, when combining neutrino oscillation data with cosmology and neutrinoless double beta decay. We also show that the limits on the total neutrino mass Sigma m(nu) can change dramatically when moving from one prior to the other. These results have profound implications for future studies on the neutrino mass ordering, as they crucially state the need for self-consistent analyses which explore the best parametrization and priors, without combining results that involve different assumptions.
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Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., Martin-Albo, J., Muñoz Vidal, J., & Pena-Garay, C. (2013). Discovery potential of xenon-based neutrinoless double beta decay experiments in light of small angular scale CMB observations. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 03(3), 043–17pp.
Abstract: The South Pole Telescope (SPT) has probed an expanded angular range of the CMB temperature power spectrum. Their recent analysis of the latest cosmological data prefers nonzero neutrino masses, with Sigma m(nu) = (0.32 +/- 0.11) eV. This result, if con firmed by the upcoming Planck data, has deep implications on the discovery of the nature of neutrinos. In particular, the values of the effective neutrino mass m(beta beta) involved in neutrinoless double beta decay (beta beta 0 nu) are severely constrained for both the direct and inverse hierarchy, making a discovery much more likely. In this paper, we focus in xenon-based beta beta 0 nu experiments, on the double grounds of their good performance and the suitability of the technology to large-mass scaling. We show that the current generation, with effective masses in the range of 100 kg and conceivable exposures in the range of 500 kg.year, could already have a sizeable opportunity to observe beta beta 0 nu events, and their combined discovery potential is quite large. The next generation, with an exposure in the range of 10 ton.year, would have a much more enhanced sensitivity, in particular due to the very low specific background that all the xenon technologies (liquid xenon, high-pressure xenon and xenon dissolved in liquid scintillator) can achieve. In addition, a high-pressure xenon gas TPC also features superb energy resolution. We show that such detector can fully explore the range of allowed effective Majorana masses, thus making a discovery very likely.
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Herrero, V., Toledo, J., Catala, J. M., Esteve, R., Gil, A., Lorca, D., et al. (2012). Readout electronics for the SiPM tracking plane in the NEXT-1 prototype. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 695, 229–232.
Abstract: NEXT is a new experiment to search for neutrinoless double beta decay using a 100 kg radio-pure high-pressure gaseous xenon TPC with electroluminescence readout. A large-scale prototype with a SiPM tracking plane has been built. The primary electron paths can be reconstructed from time-resolved measurements of the light that arrives to the SiPM plane. Our approach is to measure how many photons have reached each SiPM sensor each microsecond with a gated integrator. We have designed and tested a 16-channel front-end board that includes the analog paths and a digital section. Each analog path consists of three different stages: a transimpedance amplifier, a gated integrator and an offset and gain control stage. Measurements show good linearity and the ability to detect single photoelectrons.
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Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., Guinea, F., Fogler, M. M., Katsnelson, M. I., Martin-Albo, J., Monrabal, F., et al. (2012). GraXe, graphene and xenon for neutrinoless double beta decay searches. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 02(2), 037–17pp.
Abstract: We propose a new detector concept, GraXe (to be pronounced as grace), to search for neutrinoless double beta decay in Xe-136. GraXe combines a popular detection medium in rare-event searches, liquid xenon, with a new, background-free material, grapheme. In our baseline design of GraXe, a sphere made of graphene-coated titanium mesh and filled with liquid xenon (LXe) enriched in the Xe-136 isotope is immersed in a large volume of natural LXe instrumented with photodetectors. Liquid xenon is an excellent scintillator, reasonably transparent to its own light. Graphene is transparent over a large frequency range, and impermeable to the xenon. Event position could be deduced from the light pattern detected in the photosensors. External backgrounds would be shielded by the buffer of natural LXe, leaving the ultra-radiopure internal volume virtually free of background. Industrial graphene can be manufactured at a competitive cost to produce the sphere. Enriching xenon in the isotope Xe-136 is easy and relatively cheap, and there is already near one ton of enriched xenon available in the world (currently being used by the EXO, KamLAND-Zen and NEXT experiments). All the cryogenic know-how is readily available from the numerous experiments using liquid xenon. An experiment using the GraXe concept appears realistic and affordable in a short time scale, and its physics potential is enormous.
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