Escrihuela, F. J., Forero, D. V., Miranda, O. G., Tortola, M., & Valle, J. W. F. (2017). Probing CP violation with non-unitary mixing in long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments: DUNE as a case study. New J. Phys., 19, 093005–14pp.
Abstract: When neutrino masses arise from the exchange of neutral heavy leptons, as in most seesaw schemes, the effective lepton mixing matrix N describing neutrino propagation is non-unitary, hence neutrinos are not exactly orthonormal. New CP violation phases appear in N that could be confused with the standard phase delta(CP) characterizing the three neutrino paradigm. We study the potential of the long-baseline neutrino experiment DUNE in probing CP violation induced by the standard CP phase in the presence of non-unitarity. In order to accomplish this we develop our previous formalism, so as to take into account the neutrino interactions with the medium, important in long baseline experiments such as DUNE. We find that the expected CP sensitivity of DUNE is somewhat degraded with respect to that characterizing the standard unitary case. However the effect is weaker than might have been expected thanks mainly to the wide neutrino beam. We also investigate the sensitivity of DUNE to the parameters characterizing non-unitarity. In this case we find that there is no improvement expected with respect to the current situation, unless the near detector setup is revamped.
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Bonilla, C., Romao, J. C., & Valle, J. W. F. (2016). Electroweak breaking and neutrino mass: `invisible' Higgs decays at the LHC (type II seesaw). New J. Phys., 18, 033033–21pp.
Abstract: Neutrino mass generation through the Higgs mechanism not only suggests the need to reconsider the physics of electroweak symmetry breaking from a new perspective, but also provides a new theoretically consistent and experimentally viable paradigm. We illustrate this by describing the main features of the electroweak symmetry breaking sector of the simplest type-II seesaw model with spontaneous breaking of lepton number. After reviewing the relevant `theoretical' and astrophysical restrictions on the Higgs sector, we perform an analysis of the sensitivities of Higgs Boson searches at the ongoing ATLAS and CMS experiments at the LHC, including not only the new contributions to the decay channels present in the standard model (SM) but also genuinely non-SM Higgs Boson decays, such as `invisible' Higgs Boson decays to majorons. We find sensitivities that are likely to be reached at the upcoming run of the experiments.
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Di Molfetta, G., & Perez, A. (2016). Quantum walks as simulators of neutrino oscillations in a vacuum and matter. New J. Phys., 18, 103038–8pp.
Abstract: We analyze the simulation of Dirac neutrino oscillations using quantum walks, both in a vacuum and in matter. We show that this simulation, in the continuum limit, reproduces a set of coupled Dirac equations that describe neutrino flavor oscillations, and we make use of this to establish a connection with neutrino phenomenology, thus allowing one to fix the parameters of the simulation for a given neutrino experiment. We also analyze how matter effects for neutrino propagation can be simulated in the quantum walk. In this way, important features, such as the MSW effect, can be incorporated. Thus, the simulation of neutrino oscillations with the help of quantum walks might be useful to illustrate these effects in extreme conditions, such as the solar interior or supernovae.
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Super-Kamiokande Collaboration(Abe, K. et al), & Molina Sedgwick, S. (2022). Neutron tagging following atmospheric neutrino events in a water Cherenkov detector. J. Instrum., 17(10), P10029–41pp.
Abstract: We present the development of neutron-tagging techniques in Super-Kamiokande IV using a neural network analysis. The detection efficiency of neutron capture on hydrogen is estimated to be 26%, with a mis-tag rate of 0.016 per neutrino event. The uncertainty of the tagging efficiency is estimated to be 9.0%. Measurement of the tagging efficiency with data from an Americium-Beryllium calibration agrees with this value within 10%. The tagging procedure was performed on 3,244.4 days of SK-IV atmospheric neutrino data, identifying 18,091 neutrons in 26,473 neutrino events. The fitted neutron capture lifetime was measured as 218 +/- 9 μs.
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T2K Collaboration(Abe, K. et al), Antonova, M., Cervera-Villanueva, A., Molina Bueno, L., & Novella, P. (2022). Scintillator ageing of the T2K near detectors fro 2010 to 2021. J. Instrum., 17(10), P10028–36pp.
Abstract: The T2K experiment widely uses plastic scintillator as a target for neutrino interactions and an active medium for the measurement of charged particles produced in neutrino interactions at its near detector complex. Over 10 years of operation the measured light yield recorded by the scintillator based subsystems has been observed to degrade by 0.9-2.2% per year. Extrapolation of the degradation rate through to 2040 indicates the recorded light yield should remain above the lower threshold used by the current reconstruction algorithms for all subsystems. This will allow the near detectors to continue contributing to important physics measurements during the T2K-II and Hyper-Kamiokande eras. Additionally, work to disentangle the degradation of the plastic scintillator and wavelength shifting fibres shows that the reduction in light yield can be attributed to the ageing of the plastic scintillator. The long component of the attenuation length of the wavelength shifting fibres was observed to degrade by 1.3-5.4% per year, while the short component of the attenuation length did not show any conclusive degradation.
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