Abstract: We study the capabilities of the DUNE near detector to probe deviations from unitarity of the leptonic mixing matrix, the 3+1 sterile formalism and Non-Standard Interactions affecting neutrino production and detection. We clarify the relation and possible mappings among the three formalisms at short-baseline experiments, and we add to current analyses in the literature the study of the nu(mu)-> nu(tau) appearance channel. We study in detail the impact of spectral uncertainties on the sensitivity to new physics using the DUNE near detector, which has been widely overlooked in the literature. Our analysis shows that this plays an important role on the results and, in particular, that it can lead to a strong reduction in the sensitivity to sterile neutrinos from nu(mu)-> nu(e) transitions, by more than two orders of magnitude. This stresses the importance of a joint experimental and theoretical effort to improve our understanding of neutrino nucleus cross sections, as well as hadron production uncertainties and beam focusing effects. Nevertheless, even with our conservative and more realistic implementation of systematic uncertainties, we find that an improvement over current bounds in the new physics frameworks considered is generally expected if spectral uncertainties are below the 5% level.

Abstract: We investigate the non-linear evolution of the relic cosmic neutrino background by running large box-size, high resolution N-body simulations which incorporate cold dark matter (CDM) and neutrinos as independent particle species. Our set of simulations explore the properties of neutrinos in a reference Lambda CDM model with total neutrino masses between 0.05-0.60 eV in cold dark matter haloes of mass 10(11) – 10(15) h(-1) M-circle dot, over a redshift range z = 0 – 2. We compute the halo mass function and show that it is reasonably well fitted by the Sheth-Tormen formula, once the neutrino contribution to the total matter is removed. More importantly, we focus on the CDM and neutrino properties of the density and peculiar velocity fields in the cosmological volume, inside and in the outskirts of virialized haloes. The dynamical state of the neutrino particles depends strongly on their momentum: whereas neutrinos in the low velocity tail behave similarly to CDM particles, neutrinos in the high velocity tail are not affected by the clustering of the underlying CDM component. We find that the neutrino (linear) unperturbed momentum distribution is modified and mass and redshift dependent deviations from the expected Fermi-Dirac distribution are in place both in the cosmological volume and inside haloes. The neutrino density profiles around virialized haloes have been carefully investigated and a simple fitting formula is provided. The neutrino profile, unlike the cold dark matter one, is found to be cored with core size and central density that depend on the neutrino mass, redshift and mass of the halo, for halos of masses larger than similar to 10(13.5) h(-1) M-circle dot. For lower masses the neutrino profile is best fitted by a simple power-law relation in the range probed by the simulations. The results we obtain are numerically converged in terms of neutrino profiles at the 10% level for scales above similar to 200 h(-1) kpc at z = 0, and are stable with respect to box-size and starting redshift of the simulation. Our findings are particularly important in view of upcoming large-scale structure surveys, like Euclid, that are expected to probe the non-linear regime at the percent level with lensing and clustering observations.

Abstract: We explore the potential of several Neutrino Factory (NF) setups to constrain, discover and measure new physics effects due to Non-Standard Interactions (NSI) in propagation through Earth matter. We first study the impact of NSI in the measurement of theta(13): we find that these could be large due to strong correlations of theta(13) with NSI parameters in the golden channel, and the inclusion of a detector at the magic baseline is crucial in order to reduce them as much as possible. We present, then, the sensitivity of the considered NF setups to the NSI parameters, paying special attention to correlations arising between them and the standard oscillation parameters, when all NSI parameters are introduced at once. Off-diagonal NSI parameters could be tested down to the level of 10(-3), whereas the diagonal combinations (epsilon(ee) – epsilon(tau tau)) and (epsilon(mu mu) – epsilon(tau tau)) can be tested down to 10(-1) and 10(-2), respectively. The possibilities of observing CP violation in this context are also explored, by presenting a first scan of the CP discovery potential of the NF setups to the phases phi(e mu), phi(e tau) and delta. We study separately the case where CP violation comes only from non-standard sources, and the case where it is entangled with the standard source, delta. In case delta turns out to be CP conserving, the interesting possibility of observing CP violation for reasonably small values of the NSI parameters emerges.

Abstract: We formulate an alternative approach based on unitarity triangles to describe neutrino oscillations in presence of non-standard interactions (NSI). Using perturbation theory, we derive the expression for the oscillation probability in case of NSI and cast it in terms of the three independent parameters of the leptonic unitarity triangle (LUT). The form invariance of the probability expression (even in presence of new physics scenario as long as the mixing matrix is unitary) facilitates a neat geometric view of neutrino oscillations in terms of LUT. We examine the regime of validity of perturbative expansions in the NSI case and make comparisons with approximate expressions existing in literature. We uncover some interesting dependencies on NSI terms while studying the evolution of LUT parameters and the Jarlskog invariant. Interestingly, the geometric approach based on LUT allows us to express the oscillation probabilities for a given pair of neutrino flavours in terms of only three (and not four) degrees of freedom which are related to the geometric properties (sides and angles) of the triangle. Moreover, the LUT parameters are invariant under rephasing transformations and independent of the parameterization adopted.

Abstract: After the successful determination of the reactor neutrino mixing angle theta(13) not equal 0.16 not equal 0, a new feature suggested by the current neutrino oscillation data is a sizeable deviation of the atmospheric neutrino mixing angle theta(23) from pi/4. Using the fact that the neutrino mixing matrix U = (UeU nu)-U-dagger, where U-e and U-nu result from the diagonalisation of the charged lepton and neutrino mass matrices, and assuming that U-nu has a i) bimaximal (BM), H) tri-bimaximal (TBM) form, or else Hi) corresponds to the conservation of the lepton charge L' = L-e – L μ- L-tau (LC), we investigate quantitatively what are the minimal forms of U-e, in terms of angles and phases it contains, that can provide the requisite corrections to U-nu so that theta(13), theta(23) and the solar neutrino mixing angle theta(12) have values compatible with the current data. Two possible orderings of the 12 and the 23 rotations in U-e, “standard” and “inverse”, are considered. The results we obtain depend strongly on the type of ordering. In the case of “standard” ordering, in particular, the Dirac CP violation phase delta, present in U, is predicted to have a value in a narrow interval around i) delta similar or equal to pi in the BM (or LC) case, H) delta congruent to 3 pi/2 or pi/2 in the TBM case, the CP conserving values delta = 0, pi, 2 pi being excluded in the TBM case at more than 4 sigma.