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Cervera-Villanueva, A., Laing, A., Martin-Albo, J., & Soler, F. J. P. (2010). Performance of the MIND detector at a Neutrino Factory using realistic muon reconstruction. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 624(3), 601–614.
Abstract: A Neutrino Factory producing an intense beam composed of v(e)((v) over bar (e)) and (v) over bar (mu)(v(mu)) from muon decays has been shown to have the greatest sensitivity to the two currently unmeasured neutrino mixing parameters theta(13) and delta(CP) Using the wrong-sign muon signal to measure v(e)-> v(mu)((v) over bar (e) ->(v) over bar (mu)) oscillations in a 50kt Magnetised Iron Neutrino Detector (MIND) sensitivity to delta(CP) could be maintained down to small values of theta(13) However the detector efficiencies used in these previous studies were calculated assuming perfect pattern recognition In this paper MIND is reassessed taking into account for the first time a realistic pattern recognition for the muon candidate Reoptimisation of the analysis utilises a combination of methods including a multivariate analysis similar to the one used in MINOS to maintain high efficiency while suppressing backgrounds ensuring that the signal selection efficiency and the background levels are comparable or better than the ones in previous analyses As a result MIND remains the most sensitive future facility for the discovery of CP violation from neutrino oscillations.
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ANTARES Collaboration(Aguilar, J. A. et al), Bigongiari, C., Dornic, D., Emanuele, U., Gomez-Gonzalez, J. P., Hernandez-Rey, J. J., et al. (2010). Performance of the front-end electronics of the ANTARES neutrino telescope. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 622(1), 59–73.
Abstract: ANTARES is a high-energy neutrino telescope installed in the Mediterranean Sea at a depth of 2475 m. It consists of a three-dimensional array of optical modules, each containing a large photomultiplier tube. A total of 2700 front-end ASICs named analogue ring samplers (ARS) process the phototube signals, measure their arrival time, amplitude and shape as well as perform monitoring and calibration tasks. The ARS chip processes the analogue signals from the optical modules and converts information into digital data. All the information is transmitted to shore through further multiplexing electronics and an optical link. This paper describes the performance of the ARS chip: results from the functionality and characterization tests in the laboratory are summarized and the long-term performance in the apparatus is illustrated.
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SuperNEMO Collaboration(Argyriades, J. et al), Carcel, S., Diaz, J., Monrabal, F., Serra, L., & Yahlali, N. (2010). Results of the BiPo-1 prototype for radiopurity measurements for the SuperNEMO double beta decay source foils. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 622(1), 120–128.
Abstract: The development of BiPo detectors is dedicated to the measurement of extremely high radiopurity in (TI)-T-208 and Bi-214 for the SuperNEMO double beta decay source foils. A modular prototype, called BiPo-1, with 0.8 m(2) of sensitive surface area, has been running in the Modane Underground Laboratory since February, 2008. The goal of BiPo-1 is to measure the different components of the background and in particular the surface radiopurity of the plastic scintillators that make up the detector. The first phase of data collection has been dedicated to the measurement of the radiopurity in (TI)-T-208. After more than one year of background measurement, a surface activity of the scintillators of A((TI)-T-208) = 1.5 μBq/m(2) is reported here. Given this level of background, a larger BiPo detector having 12 m(2) of active surface area, is able to qualify the radiopurity of the SuperNEMO selenium double beta decay foils with the required sensitivity of A((TI)-T-208) <2 μBq/kg (90% CL.) with a six month measurement.
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ANTARES Collaboration(Aguilar, J. A. et al), Bigongiari, C., Dornic, D., Emanuele, U., Gomez-Gonzalez, J. P., Hernandez-Rey, J. J., et al. (2010). Zenith distribution and flux of atmospheric muons measured with the 5-line ANTARES detector. Astropart Phys., 34(3), 179–184.
Abstract: The ANTARES high-energy neutrino telescope is a three-dimensional array of about 900 photomultipliers distributed over 12 mooring lines installed in the Mediterranean Sea. Between February and November 2007 it acquired data in a 5-line configuration. The zenith angular distribution of the atmospheric muon flux and the associated depth-intensity relation are measured and compared with previous measurements and Monte Carlo expectations. An evaluation of the systematic effects due to uncertainties on environmental and detector parameters is presented.
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Jimenez, R., Kitching, T., Pena-Garay, C., & Verde, L. (2010). Can we measure the neutrino mass hierarchy in the sky? J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 05(5), 035–14pp.
Abstract: Cosmological probes are steadily reducing the total neutrino mass window, resulting in constraints on the neutrino-mass degeneracy as the most significant outcome. In this work we explore the discovery potential of cosmological probes to constrain the neutrino hierarchy, and point out some subtleties that could yield spurious claims of detection. This has an important implication for next generation of double beta decay experiments, that will be able to achieve a positive signal in the case of degenerate or inverted hierarchy of Majorana neutrinos. We find that cosmological experiments that nearly cover the whole sky could in principle distinguish the neutrino hierarchy by yielding 'substantial' evidence for one scenario over the another, via precise measurements of the shape of the matter power spectrum from large scale structure and weak gravitational lensing.
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Bustamante, M., Gago, A. M., & Pena-Garay, C. (2010). Energy-independent new physics in the flavour ratios of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos. J. High Energy Phys., 04(4), 066–28pp.
Abstract: We have studied the consequences of breaking the CPT symmetry in the neutrino sector, using the expected high-energy neutrino flux from distant cosmological sources such as active galaxies. For this purpose we have assumed three different hypotheses for the neutrino production model, characterised by the flavour fluxes at production phi(0)(e) : phi(0)(mu) : phi(0)(tau) = 1 : 2 : 0, 0 : 1 : 0, and 1 : 0 : 0, and studied the theoretical and experimental expectations for the muon-neutrino flux at Earth, phi(mu), and for the flavour ratios at Earth, R = phi(mu)/phi(e) and S = phi(tau)/phi(mu). CPT violation (CPTV) has been implemented by adding an energy-independent term to the standard neutrino oscillation Hamiltonian. This introduces three new mixing angles, two new eigenvalues and three new phases, all of which have currently unknown values. We have varied the new mixing angles and eigenvalues within certain bounds, together with the parameters associated to pure standard oscillations. Our results indicate that, for the models 1 : 2 : 0 and 0 : 1 : 0, it might be possible to find large deviations of phi(mu), R, and S between the cases without and with CPTV, provided the CPTV eigenvalues lie within 10(-29) – 10(-27) GeV, or above. Moreover, if CPTV exists, there are certain values of R and S that can be accounted for by up to three production models. If no CPTV were observed, we could set limits on the CPTV eigenvalues of the same order. Detection prospects calculated using IceCube suggest that for the models 1 : 2 : 0 and 0 : 1 : 0, the modifications due to CPTV are larger and more clearly separable from the standard-oscillations predictions. We conclude that IceCube is potentially able to detect CPTV but that, depending on the values of the CPTV parameters, there could be a mis-determination of the neutrino production model.
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Freitas, E. D. C., Monteiro, C. M. B., Ball, M., Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., Lopes, J. A. M., Lux, T., et al. (2010). Secondary scintillation yield in high-pressure xenon gas for neutrinoless double beta decay (0 nu beta beta) search. Phys. Lett. B, 684(4-5), 205–210.
Abstract: The search for neutrinoless double beta decay (0 nu beta beta) is an important topic in contemporary physics with many active experiments. New projects are planning to use high-pressure xenon gas as both source and detection medium. The secondary scintillation processes available in noble gases permit large amplification with negligible statistical fluctuations, offering the prospect of energy resolution approaching the Fano factor limit. This Letter reports results for xenon secondary scintillation yield, at room temperature, as a function of electric field in the gas scintillation gap for pressures ranging from 2 to 10 bar. A Large Area Avalanche Photodiode (LAAPD) collected the VUV secondary scintillation produced in the gas. X-rays directly absorbed in the LAAPD are used as a reference for determining the number of charge carriers produced by the scintillation pulse and, hence, the number of photons impinging the LAAPD. The number of photons produced per drifting electron and per kilovolt, the so-called scintillation amplification parameter, displays a small increase with pressure, ranging from 141 +/- 6 at 2 bar to 170 +/- 10 at 8 bar. In our setup, this Parameter does not increase above 8 bar due to nonnegligible electron attachment. The results are in good agreement with those presented in the literature in the 1 to 3 bar range. The increase of the scintillation amplification parameter with pressure for high gas densities has been also observed in former work at cryogenic temperatures.
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Hirsch, M., Kernreiter, T., Romao, J. C., & del Moral, A. V. (2010). Minimal supersymmetric inverse seesaw: neutrino masses, lepton flavour violation and LHC phenomenology. J. High Energy Phys., 01(1), 103–21pp.
Abstract: We study neutrino masses in the framework of the supersymmetric inverse seesaw model. Different from the non-supersymmetric version a minimal realization with just one pair of singlets is sufficient to explain all neutrino data. We compute the neutrino mass matrix up to 1-loop order and show how neutrino data can be described in terms of the model parameters. We then calculate rates for lepton flavour violating (LFV) processes, such as μ-> e gamma and chargino decays to singlet scalar neutrinos. The latter decays are potentially observable at the LHC and show a characteristic decay pattern dictated by the same parameters which generate the observed large neutrino angles.
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Reid, B. A., Verde, L., Jimenez, R., & Mena, O. (2010). Robust neutrino constraints by combining low redshift observations with the CMB. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 01(1), 003–21pp.
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.
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Meloni, D., Morisi, S., & Peinado, E. (2011). Neutrino phenomenology and stable dark matter with A(4). Phys. Lett. B, 697(4), 339–342.
Abstract: We present a model based on the A(4) non-Abelian discrete symmetry leading to a predictive five-parameter neutrino mass matrix and providing a stable dark matter candidate. We found an interesting correlation among the atmospheric and the reactor angles which predicts theta(23) similar to pi/4for very small reactor angle and deviation from maximal atmospheric mixing for large theta(13). Only normal neutrino mass spectrum is possible and the effective mass entering the neutrinoless double beta decay rate is constrained to be vertical bar m(ee)vertical bar > 4 x 10(-4) eV.
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