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Morisi, S., & Valle, J. W. F. (2013). Neutrino masses and mixing: a flavour symmetry roadmap. Fortschritte Phys.-Prog. Phys., 61(4-5), 466–492.
Abstract: Over the last ten years tri-bimaximal mixing has played an important role in modeling the flavour problem. We give a short review of the status of flavour symmetry models of neutrino mixing. We concentrate on non-Abelian discrete symmetries, which provide a simple way to account for the TBM pattern. We discuss phenomenological implications such as neutrinoless double beta decay, lepton flavour violation as well as theoretical aspects such as the possibility to explain quarks and leptons within a common framework, such as grand unified models.
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Gonzalez Felipe, R., Serodio, H., & Silva, J. P. (2013). Neutrino masses and mixing in A(4) models with three Higgs doublets. Phys. Rev. D, 88(1), 015015–10pp.
Abstract: We study neutrino masses and mixing in the context of flavor models with A(4) symmetry, three scalar doublets in the triplet representation, and three lepton families. We show that there is no representation assignment that yields a dimension-5 mass operator consistent with experiment. We then consider a type-I seesaw with three heavy right-handed neutrinos, explaining in detail why it fails, and allowing us to show that agreement with the present neutrino oscillation data can be recovered with the inclusion of dimension-3 heavy neutrino mass terms that break softly the A(4) symmetry.
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Archidiacono, M., Giusarma, E., Melchiorri, A., & Mena, O. (2013). Neutrino and dark radiation properties in light of recent CMB observations. Phys. Rev. D, 87(10), 103519–10pp.
Abstract: Recent cosmic microwave background measurements at high multipoles from the South Pole Telescope and from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope seem to disagree in their conclusions for the neutrino and dark radiation properties. In this paper we set new bounds on the dark radiation and neutrino properties in different cosmological scenarios combining the ACT and SPT data with the nine-year data release of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP-9), baryon acoustic oscillation data, Hubble Telescope measurements of the Hubble constant, and supernovae Ia luminosity distance data. In the standard three massive neutrino case, the two high multipole probes give similar results if baryon acoustic oscillation data are removed from the analyses and Hubble Telescope measurements are also exploited. A similar result is obtained within a standard cosmology with N-eff massless neutrinos, although in this case the agreement between these two measurements is also improved when considering simultaneously baryon acoustic oscillation data and Hubble Space Telescope measurements. In the N-eff massive neutrino case the two high multipole probes give very different results regardless of the external data sets used in the combined analyses. When considering extended cosmological scenarios with a dark energy equation of state or with a running of the scalar spectral index, the evidence for neutrino masses found for the South Pole Telescope in the three neutrino scenario disappears for all the data combinations explored here. Again, adding Hubble Telescope data seems to improve the agreement between the two high multipole cosmic microwave background measurements considered here. In the case in which a dark radiation background with unknown clustering properties is also considered, SPT data seem to exclude the standard value for the dark radiation viscosity c(vis)(2) = 1/3 at the 2 sigma C.L., finding evidence for massive neutrinos only when combining SPT data with baryon acoustic oscillation measurements.
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NEXT Collaboration(Alvarez, V. et al), Carcel, S., Cervera-Villanueva, A., Diaz, J., Ferrario, P., Gil, A., et al. (2013). Near-intrinsic energy resolution for 30-662 keV gamma rays in a high pressure xenon electroluminescent TPC. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 708, 101–114.
Abstract: We present the design, data and results from the NEXT prototype for Double Beta and Dark Matter (NEXT-DBDM) detector, a high-pressure gaseous natural xenon electroluminescent time projection chamber (TPC) that was built at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. It is a prototype of the planned NEXT-100 Xe-136 neutrino-less double beta decay (0 nu beta beta) experiment with the main objectives of demonstrating near-intrinsic energy resolution at energies up to 662 keV and of optimizing the NEXT-100 detector design and operating parameters. Energy resolutions of similar to 1% FWHM for 662 keV gamma rays were obtained at 10 and 15 atm and similar to 5% FWHM for 30 keV fluorescence xenon X-rays. These results demonstrate that 0.5% FWHM resolutions for the 2459 keV hypothetical neutrino-less double beta decay peak are realizable. This energy resolution is a factor 7-20 better than that of the current leading 0 nu beta beta experiments using liquid xenon and thus represents a significant advancement. We present also first results from a track imaging system consisting of 64 silicon photo-multipliers recently installed in NEXT-DBDM that, along with the excellent energy resolution, demonstrates the key functionalities required for the NEXT-100 0 nu beta beta search.
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Barrientos, D., Gonzalez, V., Bellato, M., Gadea, A., Bazzacco, D., Blasco, J. M., et al. (2013). Multiple Register Synchronization With a High-Speed Serial Link Using the Aurora Protocol. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., 60(5), 3521–3525.
Abstract: In this work, the development and characterization of a multiple synchronous registers interface communicating with a high-speed serial link and using the Aurora protocol is presented. A detailed description of the developing process and the characterization methods and hardware test benches are also included. This interface will implement the slow control buses of the digitizer cards for the second generation of electronics for the Advanced GAmma Tracking Array (AGATA).
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