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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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DOE OSTI2017

The large enriched germanium experiment for neutrinoless double beta decay (LEGEND)

We report the observation of neutrinoless double-beta decay (0νββ) would show that lepton number is violated, reveal that neu-trinos are Majorana particles, and provide information on neutrino mass. A discovery-capable experiment covering the inverted ordering region, with effective Majorana neutrino masses of 15 - 50 meV, will require a tonne-scale experiment with excellent energy resolution and extremely low backgrounds, at the level of ~0.1 count /(FWHM·t·yr) in the region of the signal. The current generation 76 Ge experiments GERDA and the Majorana Demonstrator, utilizing high purity Germanium detectors with an intrinsic energy resolution of 0.12%, have achieved the lowest backgrounds by over an order of magnitude in the 0νββ signal region of all 0νββ experiments. Building on this success, the LEGEND collaboration has been formed to pursue a tonne-scale 76 Ge experiment. Lastly, the collaboration aims to develop a phased 0νββ experimental program with discovery potential at a half-life approaching or at 10 28 years, using existing resources as appropriate to expedite physics results.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Leptogenesis, radiative neutrino masses and inert Higgs triplet dark matter

We extend the standard model by three types of inert fields including Majorana fermion singlets/triplets, real Higgs singlets/triplets and leptonic Higgs doublets. In the presence of a softly broken lepton number and an exactly conserved Z{sub 2} discrete symmetry, these inert fields together can mediate a one-loop diagram for a Majorana neutrino mass generation. The heavier inert fields can decay to realize a successful leptogenesis while the lightest inert field can provide a stable dark matter candidate. As an example, we demonstrate the leptogenesis by the inert Higgs doublet decays. We also perform a systematic study on the inert Higgs triplet dark matter scenario where the interference between the gauge and Higgs portal interactions can significantly affect the dark matter properties.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Fermionic dark matter in a simple t-channel model

We consider a fermionic dark matter (DM) particle in renormalizable Standard Model (SM) gauge interactions in a simple t-channel model. The DM particle interactions with SM fermions is through the exchange of scalar and vector mediators which carry colour or lepton number. In the case of coloured mediators considered in this study, we find that if the DM is thermally produced and accounts for the observed relic density almost the entire parameter space is ruled out by the direct detection observations. The bounds from the monojet plus missing energy searches at the Large Hadron Collider are less stringent in this case. In contrast for the case of Majorana DM, we obtain strong bounds from the monojet searches which rule out DM particles of mass less than about a few hundred GeV for both the scalar and vector mediators.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Gravitational leptogenesis in axion inflation with SU(2) gauge field

We present an intrinsic leptogenesis mechanism in models of axion inflation with a classical SU(2) gauge field. The gauge field is coupled to the axion with a Chern-Simons interaction and comprises a tiny fraction of the total energy, ρ{sub YM}/ρ{sub tot} ∼< ε{sup 2}. However, it has spin-2 fluctuations which breaks the parity and leads to the generation of chiral gravitational waves during inflation. By the gravitational anomaly in SM, it naturally creates a net lepton number density, sufficient to explain the matter asymmetry. We show that this mechanism can generate the observed value of baryon to photon number density in a natural range of parameters and yet has a small chiral tensor power spectrum on large scales.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Multimessenger astronomy and new neutrino physics

In this work, we discuss how to constrain new physics in the neutrino sector using multimessenger astronomical observations by the IceCube experiment. The information from time and direction coincidence with an identifiable source is used to improve experimental limits by constraining the mean free path of neutrinos from these sources. Over the coming years, IceCube is expected to detect neutrinos from a variety of neutrino-producing sources, and has already identified the Blazar TXS 0506+056 as a neutrino-producing source. We explore specific phenomenological models: additional neutrino interactions, neutrinophilic dark matter, and lepton-number-charged axion dark matter. For each new physics scenario, we interpret the observation of neutrinos from TXS 0506+056 as a constraint on the parameters of the new physics models. Lastly, we also discuss mergers involving neutron stars and black holes, and how the detection of neutrinos coincident with these events could place bounds on the new physics models.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Search for creation of electrons in lab

Here, we examine the physics motivations to search for lepton number violations in the laboratory, in particular by studying the important nuclear transition called neutrinoless double beta decay, which consists in the creation of a pair of electrons. We address some major shortcomings of the Standard Model of electroweak interactions, arguing that most of them can be solved simply within extended models with Majorana neutrinos. At the same time, we discuss the difficulties of obtaining precise predictions for the neutrinoless double beta decay rate and strengthen the case of probing Majorana neutrino masses of about 10 meV.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2015

MAJORANA Collaboration's Experience with Germanium Detectors

A unique way to explore the nature of the neutrino is the search for neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ). Observation of 0νββ-decay would decisively prove that neutrinos are Majorana particles and that lepton number is violated. The Majorana Demonstrator will perform a search for 0νββ-decay in 76Ge. The experiment is currently under construction at the Sanford Underground Facility (SURF) in South Dakota, USA. The Majorana Demonstrator will use an array of 40 kg of high purity germanium detectors, up to 30 kg of which will be enriched to 86% in 76Ge, surrounded by passive and active shielding. The major goal is to demonstrate a path forward to achieving a background rate at or below 3 counts/(ROI-t-y) in the 4 keV region of interest (ROI) around the 2039 keV Q-value of the 76Ge 0νββ decay. This is required for the next generation of tonne-scale germanium-based 0νββ-decay searches that are designed to probe the neutrino mass scale in the inverted-hierarchy region. Beyond the usage of ultra-clean material and extensive shielding, a key feature to achieve a low background level is a high energy resolution to minimize the ROI and pulse-shape discrimination capability to distinguish signal from background events. These properties are provided by High Purity (HP) P-type Point Contact (PPC) germanium (Ge) detectors. By enriching the natural germanium to 87% in 76Ge the detectors can be used as source and detector simultaneously. At the time of this presentation, 30 enriched detectors with average mass of 840 g have been delivered and successfully tested at SURF. All detectors met the requirements during characterization in vendor cryostat and are now being assembled in the final Majorana Demonstrator experiment.

Mertens, S.↗
DOE OSTI2017

Delayed charge recovery discrimination of passivated surface alpha events in P-type point-contact detectors

The Majorana Demonstrator searches for neutrinoless double-beta decay of 76 Ge using arrays of high-purity germanium detectors. If observed, this process would demonstrate that lepton number is not a conserved quantity in nature, with implications for grand-unification and for explaining the predominance of matter over antimatter in the universe. A problematic background in such large granular detector arrays is posed by alpha particles. In the Majorana Demonstrator, events have been observed that are consistent with energy- degraded alphas originating on the passivated surface, leading to a potential background contribution in the region-of-interest for neutrinoless double-beta decay. However, it is also observed that when energy deposition occurs very close to the passivated surface, charges drift through the bulk onto that surface, and then drift along it with greatly reduced mobility. This leads to both a reduced prompt signal and a measurable change in slope of the tail of a recorded pulse. In this contribution we discuss the characteristics of these events and the development of a filter that can identify the occurrence of this delayed charge recovery, allowing for the efficient rejection of passivated surface alpha events in analysis.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Core-collapse supernova neutrino emission and detection informed by state-of-the-art three-dimensional numerical models

ABSTRACT Based on our recent three-dimensional core-collapse supernova (CCSN) simulations including both exploding and non-exploding models, we study the detailed neutrino signals in representative terrestrial neutrino observatories, namely Super-Kamiokande (Hyper-Kamiokande), DUNE, JUNO, and IceCube. We find that the physical origin of difference in the neutrino signals between 1D and 3D is mainly proto-neutron-star convection. We study the temporal and angular variations of the neutrino signals and discuss the detectability of the time variations driven by the spiral standing accretion shock instability (spiral SASI) when it emerges for non-exploding models. In addition, we determine that there can be a large angular asymmetry in the event rate (${\gtrsim} 50 {{\ \rm per\ cent}}$), but the time-integrated signal has a relatively modest asymmetry (${\lesssim} 20 {{\ \rm per\ cent}}$). Both features are associated with the lepton-number emission self-sustained asymmetry and the spiral SASI. Moreover, our analysis suggests that there is an interesting correlation between the total neutrino energy (TONE) and the cumulative number of neutrino events in each detector, a correlation that can facilitate data analyses of real observations. We demonstrate the retrieval of neutrino energy spectra for all flavours of neutrino by applying a novel spectrum reconstruction technique to the data from multiple detectors. We find that this new method is capable of estimating the TONE within the error of ∼20 per cent if the distance to the CCSN is ≲6 kpc.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2018

r-Process nucleosynthesis from three-dimensional jet-driven core-collapse supernovae with magnetic misalignments

We investigate r-process nucleosynthesis in three-dimensional general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of jet-driven supernovae resulting from rapidly rotating, strongly magnetized core-collapse. We explore the effect of misaligning the pre-collapse magnetic field with respect to the rotation axis by performing four simulations: one aligned model and models with 15°, 30°, and 45° misalignments. The simulations we present employ a microphysical finite-temperature equation of state and a leakage scheme that captures the overall energetics and lepton number exchange due to post-bounce neutrino emission and absorption. We track the thermodynamic properties of the ejected material with Lagrangian tracer particles and analyse its composition with the nuclear reaction network SKYNET. By using different neutrino luminosities in post-processing the tracer data with SKYNET, we constrain the impact of uncertainties in neutrino luminosities. We find that, for the aligned model considered here, the use of an approximate leakage scheme results in neutrino luminosity uncertainties corresponding to a factor of 100–1000 uncertainty in the abundance of third peak r-process elements. Our results show that for misalignments of 30° or less, r-process elements are robustly produced as long as neutrino luminosities are reasonably low (≲ 5 × 10 52 erg s -1 ). For a more extreme misalignment of 45°, we find the production of r-process elements beyond the second peak significantly reduced. We conclude that robust r-process nucleosynthesis in magnetorotational supernovae requires a progenitor stellar core with a large poloidal magnetic field component that is at least moderately (within ~30°) aligned with the rotation axis.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Revival of the fittest: exploding core-collapse supernovae from 12 to 25 M⊙

Here, we present results of 2D axisymmetric core-collapse supernova simulations, employing the FORNAX code, of nine progenitor models spanning 12 to 25 M⊙. Four of the models explode with inelastic scattering off electrons and neutrons as well as the many-body correction to neutrino-nucleon scattering opacities. We show that these four models feature sharp Si–O interfaces in their density profiles, and that the corresponding dip in density reduces the accretion rate around the stalled shock and prompts explosion. The non-exploding models lack such a steep feature, highlighting the Si–O interface as one key to explosion. Furthermore, we show that all of the non-exploding models can be nudged to explosion with modest changes to macrophysical inputs, including moderate rotation and perturbations to infall velocities, as well as to microphysical inputs, including reasonable changes to neutrino-nucleon interaction rates, suggesting that all the models are perhaps close to criticality. Exploding models have energies of a few × 10 50 erg at the end of our simulation, and are rising, emphasizing the need to continue these simulations over larger grids and for longer times to reproduce the energies seen in nature. Morphology of the explosion contributes to the explosion energy, with more isotropic ejecta producing larger explosion energies. We do not find evidence for the Lepton-number Emission Self-sustained Asymmetry. Finally, we look at proto-neutron star (PNS) properties and explore the role of dimension in our simulations. We find that convection in the PNS produces larger PNS radii as well as greater ‘ν μ ’ luminosities in 2D compared to 1D.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Temporal and angular variations of 3D core-collapse supernova emissions and their physical correlations

Abstract We provide the time series and angular distributions of the neutrino and gravitational wave emissions of 11 state-of-the-art 3D non-rotating core-collapse supernova models and explore correlations between these signatures and the real-time dynamics of the shock and the proto-neutron star (PNS) core. The neutrino emissions are roughly isotropic on average, with instantaneous excursions about the mean inferred luminosity of as much as ±20 per cent. The deviation from isotropy is least for the ‘νμ’-type neutrinos and the lowest mass progenitors. Instantaneous temporal luminosity variations along a given direction for exploding models average ∼2–4 per cent, but can be as high as ∼10 per cent. For non-exploding models, they can achieve ∼25 per cent. The temporal variations in the neutrino emissions correlate with the temporal and angular variations in the mass accretion rate. We witness the lepton-number emission self-sustained asymmetry (LESA) phenomenon in all our models and find that the vector direction of the LESA dipole and that of the inner Ye distribution are highly correlated. For our entire set of 3D models, we find strong connections between the cumulative neutrino energy losses, the radius of the proto-neutron star, and the f-mode frequency of the gravitational wave emissions. When physically normalized, the progenitor-to-progenitor variation in any of these quantities is no more than ∼10 per cent. Moreover, the reduced f-mode frequency is independent of time after bounce to better than ∼10 per cent. Therefore, simultaneous measurement of gravitational waves and neutrinos from a given supernova event can be used synergistically to extract real physical quantities of the supernova core.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Neutrinoless double- β decay matrix elements in light nuclei

Here, we present the first ab initio calculations of neutrinoless double-β decay matrix elements in A = 6-12 nuclei using variational Monte Carlo wave functions obtained from the Argonne v 18 two-nucleon potential and Illinois-7 three-nucleon interaction. We study both light Majorana neutrino exchange and potentials arising from a large class of multi-TeV mechanisms of lepton-number violation. Our results provide benchmarks to be used in testing many-body methods that can be extended to the heavy nuclei of experimental interest. In light nuclei we also study the impact of two-body short-range correlations and the use of different forms for the transition operators, such as those corresponding to different orders in chiral effective theory.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Fast collective neutrino oscillations inside the neutrino sphere in core-collapse supernovae

Neutrinos are believed to have a key role in the explosion mechanism of core-collapse supernovae as they carry most of the energy released by the gravitational collapse of a massive star. If their flavor is converted fast inside the neutrino sphere, the supernova explosion may be influenced. This paper is reporting the results of the extended work of our previous paper. Here, we perform a thorough survey of the electron lepton number (ELN) crossing in one of our self-consistent, realistic Boltzmann simulations in two spatial dimensions under axisymmetry for the existence of the crossings between $ν_e$ and $\bar{ν}_e$ angular distributions, or the ELN crossing. We report for the first time the positive detections deep inside the core of the massive star in the vicinity of neutrino sphere at $\textit{r}$ ≈ 16 – 21 km . We find that low values of the electron fraction $Y_e$ produced by convective motions together with the appearance of light elements are critically important to give rise to the ELN crossing by enhancing the chemical potential difference between proton and neutron, and hence by mitigating the Fermi-degeneracy of $ν_e$. Since the region of positive detection are sustained and, in fact, expanding with time, it may have an impact on the explosion of core-collapse supernovae, observational neutrino astronomy, and nucleosynthesis of heavy nuclei.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Generalized Kompaneets formalism for inelastic neutrino-nucleon scattering in supernova simulations

Based on the Kompaneets approximation, we develop a robust methodology to calculate spectral redistribution via inelastic neutrino-nucleon scattering in the context of core-collapse supernova simulations. The resulting equations conserve lepton number to machine precision and scale linearly, not quadratically, with number of energy groups. The formalism also provides an elegant means to derive the rate of energy transfer to matter which, as it must, automatically goes to zero when the neutrino radiation field is in thermal equilibrium. Furthermore, we derive the next higher order in $ϵ/mc^2$ correction to the neutrino Kompaneets equation. Unlike other Kompaneets schema, ours also generalizes to the case of anisotropic angular distributions, while retaining the conservative form that is a hallmark of the classical Kompaneets equation. In this work, our formalism enables immediate incorporation into supernova codes that follow the spectral angular moments of the neutrino radiation fields.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Two-neutrino double-𝛽 decay in pionless effective field theory from a Euclidean finite-volume correlation function

Two-neutrino double-β decay of certain nuclear isotopes is one of the rarest Standard Model processes observed in nature. Its neutrinoless counterpart is an exotic lepton-number nonconserving process that is widely searched to determine if the neutrinos are Majorana fermions. In order to connect the rate of these processes to the Standard Model and beyond the Standard Model interactions, it is essential that the corresponding nuclear matrix elements are constrained reliably from theory. Lattice quantum chromodynamics (LQCD) and low-energy effective field theories (EFTs) are expected to play an essential role in constraining the matrix element of the two-nucleon subprocess, which could in turn provide the input into ab initio nuclear-structure calculations in larger isotopes. Focusing on the two-neutrino process $nn\rightarrow pp(ee\bar{v}_{e}\bar{v}_e)$, the amplitude is constructed in this work in pionless EFT at next-to-leading order, demonstrating the emergence of a renormalization-scale independent amplitude and the absence of any new low-energy constant at this order beyond those present in the single-weak process. Most importantly, it is shown how a LQCD four-point correlation function in Euclidean and finite-volume spacetime can be used to constrain the Minkowski infinite-volume amplitude in the EFT. The same formalism is provided for the related single-weak process, which is an input to the double-β decay formalism. The LQCD-EFT matching procedure outlined for the double-weak amplitude paves the road toward constraining the two-nucleon matrix element entering the neutrinoless double-β decay amplitude with a light Majorana neutrino.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Constructing angular distributions of neutrinos in core-collapse supernovae from zeroth and first moments calibrated by full Boltzmann neutrino transport

Two-moment neutrino transport methods have been widely used for developing theoretical models of core-collapse supernovae (CCSN), since they substantially reduce the computational burden inherent in the multidimensional neutrino-radiation hydrodynamical simulations. The approximation, however, comes at a price; the detailed structure of angular distribution of neutrinos is sacrificed, that is the main drawback of this approach. In this paper, we develop a novel method by which to construct angular distributions of neutrinos from the zeroth and first angular moments. In our method, the angular distribution is expressed with two quadratic functions of the neutrino angle in a piecewise fashion. We determine the best parameters in the fitting function by comparing to the neutrino data in a spherically symmetric CCSN model with full Boltzmann neutrino transport. We demonstrate the capability of our method by using our recent 2D CCSN model. In this work, we find that the essential features of the angular distributions can be well reconstructed, whereas the angular distributions of incoming neutrinos tend to have large errors that increase with flux factor ($\textit{κ}$). This issue originates from the insensitiveness of incoming neutrinos to $\textit{κ}$, that is an intrinsic limitation in moment methods. Based on the results of the demonstration, we assess the reliability of electron- neutrinos lepton number (ELN)-crossing searches with the two-moment neutrino transport. This analysis is complementary to our [L. Johns and H. Nagakura arXiv:2104.04106] that scrutinizes the limitation of crossing searches with a few moments. We find that the systematic errors of angular distributions for incoming neutrinos lead to misjudgements of the crossing at $\textit{κ}$ ≳ 0.5. This casts doubt on the results of ELN-crossing searches based on two-moment methods in some previous studies.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

New method for detecting fast neutrino flavor conversions in core-collapse supernova models with two-moment neutrino transport

Fast-pairwise neutrino oscillations potentially affect many aspects of core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe): the explosion mechanism, neutrino signals, and nucleosynthesis in the ejecta. This particular mode of collective neutrino oscillations has a deep connection to the angular structure of neutrinos in momentum space; for instance, the appearance of electron-neutrino lepton number (ELN) angular crossings in momentum space is a good indicator of the occurrence of flavor conversions. However, many multidimensional CCSN simulations are carried out with approximate neutrino transport (such as two-moment methods), which limits access to the angular distributions of neutrinos, i.e., inhibits ELNcrossing searches. In this paper, we develop a new method of searching for ELN crossing in these CCSN simulations. The required data is the zeroth and first angular moments of neutrinos and the matter profile, all of which are available in CCSN models with the two-moment method. One of the novelties of our new method is the use of a ray-tracing neutrino transport to determine ELNs in the direction of the stellar center. It is designed to compensate for shortcomings of the crossing searches with only two angular moments. We assess the capability of the method by carrying out a detailed comparison with results of full Boltzmann neutrino transport in 1D and 2D CCSN models. In this work, we find that the ray-tracing neutrino transport improves the accuracy of crossing searches; indeed, the appearance/disappearance of the crossings is accurately detected even in the region of forward-peaked angular distributions. The new method is computationally cheap and has the benefit of efficient parallelization; hence, it will be useful for ELN-crossing searches in any CCSN models that employ two-moment neutrino transport.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗