Barenboim, G., Ternes, C. A., & Tortola, M. (2019). New physics vs new paradigms: distinguishing CPT violation from NSI. Eur. Phys. J. C, 79(5), 390–7pp.
Abstract: Our way of describing Nature is based on local relativistic quantum field theories, and then CPT symmetry, a natural consequence of Lorentz invariance, locality and hermiticity of the Hamiltonian, is one of the few if not the only prediction that all of them share. Therefore, testing CPT invariance does not test a particular model but the whole paradigm. Current and future long baseline experiments will assess the status of CPT in the neutrino sector at an unprecedented level and thus its distinction from similar experimental signatures arising from non-standard interactions is imperative. Whether the whole paradigm is at stake or just the standard model of neutrinos crucially depends on that.
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Masud, M., Mehta, P., Ternes, C. A., & Tortola, M. (2021). Non-standard neutrino oscillations: perspective from unitarity triangles. J. High Energy Phys., 05(5), 171–19pp.
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.
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Gariazzo, S., Martinez-Mirave, P., Mena, O., Pastor, S., & Tortola, M. (2023). Non-unitary three-neutrino mixing in the early Universe. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 03(3), 046–18pp.
Abstract: Deviations from unitarity in the three-neutrino mixing canonical picture are expected in many physics scenarios beyond the Standard Model. The mixing of new heavy neutral leptons with the three light neutrinos would in principle modify the strength and flavour structure of charged-current and neutral-current interactions with matter. Non-unitarity effects would therefore have an impact on the neutrino decoupling processes in the early Universe and on the value of the effective number of neutrinos, Neff. We calculate the cosmological energy density in the form of radiation with a non-unitary neutrino mixing matrix, addressing the possible interplay between parameters. Highly accurate measurements of Neff from forthcoming cosmological observations can provide independent and complementary limits on the departures from unitarity. For completeness, we relate the scenario of small deviations from unitarity to non-standard neutrino interactions and compare the forecasted constraints to other existing limits in the literature.
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Martinez-Mirave, P., Molina Sedgwick, S., & Tortola, M. (2022). Nonstandard interactions from the future neutrino solar sector. Phys. Rev. D, 105(3), 035004–14pp.
Abstract: The next-generation neutrino experiment JUNO will determine the solar oscillation parameters- sin(2) theta(12) and Delta m(21)(2)-with great accuracy, in addition to measuring sin(2)theta(13), Delta m(31)(2), and the mass ordering. In parallel, the continued study of solar neutrinos at Hyper-Kamiokande will provide complementary measurements in the solar sector. In this paper, we address the expected sensitivity to nonuniversal and flavor-changing nonstandard interactions (NSI) with d-type quarks from the combination of these two future neutrino experiments. We also show the robustness of their measurements of the solar parameters sin(2)theta(12) and Delta m(2)(1)(2) in the presence of NSI. We study the impact of the exact experimental configuration of the Hyper-Kamiokande detector, and conclude it is of little relevance in this scenario. Finally, we find that the LMA-D solution is expected to be present if no additional input from nonoscillation experiments is considered.
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Chatterjee, S. S., Miranda, O. G., Tortola, M., & Valle, J. W. F. (2022). Nonunitarity of the lepton mixing matrix at the European Spallation Source. Phys. Rev. D, 106(7), 075016–16pp.
Abstract: If neutrinos get mass through the exchange of lepton mediators, as in seesaw schemes, the neutrino appearance probabilities in oscillation experiments are modified due to effective nonunitarity of the lepton mixing matrix. This also leads to new CP phases and an ambiguity in underpinning the “conventional” phase of the three-neutrino paradigm. We study the CP sensitivities of various setups based at the European Spallation Source neutrino super-beam (ESSnuSB) experiment in the presence of nonunitarity. We also examine its potential in constraining the associated new physics parameters. Moreover, we show how the combination of DUNE and ESSnuSB can help further improve the sensitivities on the nonunitarity parameters.
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Forero, D. V., Giunti, C., Ternes, C. A., & Tortola, M. (2021). Nonunitary neutrino mixing in short and long-baseline experiments. Phys. Rev. D, 104(7), 075030–11pp.
Abstract: Nonunitary neutrino mixing in the light neutrino sector is a direct consequence of type-I seesaw neutrino mass models. In these models, light neutrino mixing is described by a submatrix of the full lepton mixing matrix and, then, it is not unitary in general. In consequence, neutrino oscillations are characterized by additional parameters, including new sources of CP violation. Here we perform a combined analysis of short and long-baseline neutrino oscillation data in this extended mixing scenario. We did not find a significant deviation from unitary mixing, and the complementary data sets have been used to constrain the nonunitarity parameters. We have also found that the T2K and NOvA tension in the determination of the Dirac CP-phase is not alleviated in the context of nonunitary neutrino mixing.
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Escrihuela, F. J., Forero, D. V., Miranda, O. G., Tortola, M., & Valle, J. W. F. (2015). On the description of nonunitary neutrino mixing. Phys. Rev. D, 92(5), 053009–16pp.
Abstract: Neutrino oscillations are well established and the relevant parameters determined with good precision, except for the CP phase, in terms of a unitary lepton mixing matrix. Seesaw extensions of the Standard Model predict unitarity deviations due to the admixture of heavy isosinglet neutrinos. We provide a complete description of the unitarity and universality deviations in the light-neutrino sector. Neutrino oscillation experiments involving electron or muon neutrinos and antineutrinos are fully described in terms of just three new real parameters and a new CP phase, in addition to the ones describing oscillations with unitary mixing. Using this formalism we describe the implications of nonunitarity for neutrino oscillations and summarize the model-independent constraints on heavy-neutrino couplings that arise from current experiments.
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DUNE Collaboration(Abud, A. A. et al), Amar Es-Sghir, H., Amedo, P., Antonova, M., Barenboim, G., Benitez Montiel, C., et al. (2024). Performance of a modular ton-scale pixel-readout liquid argon time projection chamber. Instruments, 8, 41–45pp.
Abstract: The Module-0 Demonstrator is a single-phase 600 kg liquid argon time projection chamber operated as a prototype for the DUNE liquid argon near detector. Based on the ArgonCube design concept, Module-0 features a novel 80k-channel pixelated charge readout and advanced high-coverage photon detection system. In this paper, we present an analysis of an eight-day data set consisting of 25 million cosmic ray events collected in the spring of 2021. We use this sample to demonstrate the imaging performance of the charge and light readout systems as well as the signal correlations between the two. We also report argon purity and detector uniformity measurements and provide comparisons to detector simulations.
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De Romeri, V., Miranda, O. G., Papoulias, D. K., Sanchez Garcia, G., Tortola, M., & Valle, J. W. F. (2023). Physics implications of a combined analysis of COHERENT CsI and LAr data. J. High Energy Phys., 04(4), 035–41pp.
Abstract: The observation of coherent elastic neutrino nucleus scattering has opened the window to many physics opportunities. This process has been measured by the COHERENT Collaboration using two different targets, first CsI and then argon. Recently, the COHERENT Collaboration has updated the CsI data analysis with a higher statistics and an improved understanding of systematics. Here we perform a detailed statistical analysis of the full CsI data and combine it with the previous argon result. We discuss a vast array of implications, from tests of the Standard Model to new physics probes. In our analyses we take into account experimental uncertainties associated to the efficiency as well as the timing distribution of neutrino fluxes, making our results rather robust. In particular, we update previous measurements of the weak mixing angle and the neutron root mean square charge radius for CsI and argon. We also update the constraints on new physics scenarios including neutrino nonstandard interactions and the most general case of neutrino generalized interactions, as well as the possibility of light mediators. Finally, constraints on neutrino electromagnetic properties are also examined, including the conversion to sterile neutrino states. In many cases, the inclusion of the recent CsI data leads to a dramatic improvement of bounds.
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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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