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In accelerator neutrino experiments, neutrino-mixing parameters are extracted from the counting rates of quasielastic (anti)neutrino scattering on nuclear targets. We discuss the uncertainties of these rates in the model approach with an energy-dependent (or running) axial mass of the nucleon.
Since about a decade the european physics community interested in neutrino and neutrino-astrophysics develops a plan to conceive the next generation large underground neutrino observatory. Recently, the LAGUNA-LBNO collaboration made the outcome of the FP7 design study public which shows a clear path for the realization of such experiment. In this paper the LAGUNA and LAGUNA-LBNO Design studies, resulting in a proposal for the LBNO experiment, will be discussed. The author will focus on the long baseline neutrino oscillation search, especially on the potential to discover the neutrino mass ordering and the search for CP violation in the lepton sector.
Considering the nonzero mass effect of the target in extracting polarized parton distribution functions (PPDFs) in preasymptotic region is not negligible. We extract PPDFs from available proton structure function data and study the numerical effects of target mass corrections (TMCs). PPDFs with and without this correction are compared.
Within the “nuclear medium cooling” scenario of neutron stars all reliably known temperature—age data, including those of the central compact objects in the supernova remnants of Cassiopeia A and XMMU-J1732, can be comfortably explained by a set of cooling curves obtained by variation of the star mass within the range of typical observed masses. The recent measurements of the masses of the pulsars PSR J1616-2230, PSR J0348-0432 and J00737-3039B and the companion of J1756-2251 provide independent proof for the existence of neutron stars with masses in a broad range from 1.2 to 2M{sub ⊙} The values M > 2M{sub ⊙} call for sufficiently stiff equations of state for neutron star matter. We investigate the response of the set of neutron star cooling curves to a stiffening of the nuclear equation of state so that maximum masses of about 2.4M{sub ⊙} would be accessible and to a deconfinement phase transition from such stiff nuclear matter in the outer core to color superconducting quark matter in the inner core. Without a readjustment of cooling inputs the mass range required to cover all cooling data for the stiff DD2 equation of state should include masses of 2.426M{sub ⊙} for describing the fast cooling of CasA while the existence of a quark matter core accelerates the cooling so that CasA cooling data are described with a hybrid star of mass 1.674M{sub ⊙}.
The relic abundance of light millicharged particles (MCPs) with the electric charge e′ = 5 × 10{sup –5}e and with the mass slightly below or above the electron mass is calculated. The abundance depends on the mass ratio η = m{sub X}/m{sub e} and for η < 1 can be high enough to allow MCPs to be the cosmological dark matter or to make a noticeable contribution to it. On the other hand, for η ≳ 1 the cosmological energy density of MCPs can be quite low, Ω{sub X}h{sub 0}{sup 2} ≈ 0.02 for scalar MCPs, and Ω{sub X}h{sub 0}{sup 2} ≈ 0.001 for spin 1/2 fermions. But even the lowest value of Ω{sub X}h{sub 0}{sup 2} is in tension with several existing limits on the MCP abundances and parameters. However, these limits have been derived under some natural or reasonable assumptions on the properties of MCPs. If these assumptions are relaxed, a patch in the mass–charge plot of MCPs may appear, permitting them to be dark matter particles.
Observations of the 21 cm line radiation coming from the epoch of reionization have a great capacity to study the cosmological growth of the Universe. Besides, CMB polarization produced by gravitational lensing has a large amount of information about the growth of matter fluctuations at late time. In this paper, we investigate their sensitivities to the impact of neutrino property on the growth of density fluctuations, such as the total neutrino mass, the effective number of neutrino species (extra radiation), and the neutrino mass hierarchy. We show that by combining a precise CMB polarization observation such as Simons Array with a 21 cm line observation such as Square kilometer Array (SKA) phase 1 and a baryon acoustic oscillation observation (Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument:DESI) we can measure effects of non-zero neutrino mass on the growth of density fluctuation if the total neutrino mass is larger than 0.1 eV. Additionally, the combinations can strongly improve errors of the bounds on the effective number of neutrino species σ (N{sub ν}) ∼ 0.06−0.09 at 95 % C.L.. Finally, by using SKA phase 2, we can determine the neutrino mass hierarchy at 95 % C.L. if the total neutrino mass is similar to or smaller than 0.1 eV.
An experimental value of the spin–spin coupling constant in deuterated molecular hydrogen HD has been obtained, J{sub pd} = (43.112 ± 0.005) Hz (300 K), while investigating two gaseous samples at pressures of 95 and 155 atm. The experimental result does not coincide with Jpd = (43.31 ± 0.05) Hz that was calculated theoretically by Helkager et al. The observed discrepancy ΔJ{sub pd} ≈ (0.20 ± 0.05 Hz) may point to a manifestation of the involvement of light pseudo-scalar (axion-like) bosons with a mass m{sub a} ≈ 1 keV/c{sup 2} in the spin–spin coupling of the HD proton and deuteron.
The RENORM model predictions of diffractive, total, and total-inelastic cross sections at the LHC are confirmed by recent measurements. The predictions of several other available models are discussed, highlighting their differences from RENORM, mainly arising from the way rapidity gap formation, low- and high-mass diffraction, unitarization, and hadronization are implemented.
The discovery of a Majorana neutrino would be revolutionary with far-reaching consequences in both particle physics and cosmology. The only feasible experiments to determine the Majorana nature of the neutrino are searches for neutrinoless double-beta decay. The next generation of double-beta decay experiments are being prepared. The general goal is to search for neutrinoless double-beta decay throughout the parameter space corresponding to the inverted hierarchy for neutrino mass. There are a several strong proposals for how to achieve this goal. The status of these efforts is reviewed.
Next generation neutrino oscillation experiments utilize details of hadronic final states to improve the precision of neutrino interaction measurements. The hadronic system was often neglected or poorly modelled in the past, but they have significant effects on high precision neutrino oscillation and cross-section measurements. Among the physics of hadronic systems in neutrino interactions, the hadronization model controls multiplicities and kinematics of final state hadrons from the primary interaction vertex. For relatively high invariant mass events, many neutrino experiments rely on the PYTHIA program. Here, we show a possible improvement of this process in neutrino event generators, by utilizing expertise from the HERMES experiment. Finally, we estimate the impact on the systematics of hadronization models for neutrino mass hierarchy analysis using atmospheric neutrinos such as the PINGU experiment.
Galaxies with stellar masses near M* contain the majority of stellar mass in the universe, and are therefore of special interest in the study of galaxy evolution. The Milky Way (MW) and Andromeda (M31) have present-day stellar masses near M*, at 5 × 10{sup 10} M {sub ☉} (defined here to be MW-mass) and 10{sup 11} M {sub ☉} (defined to be M31-mass). We study the typical progenitors of these galaxies using the FOURSTAR Galaxy Evolution Survey (ZFOURGE). ZFOURGE is a deep medium-band near-IR imaging survey, which is sensitive to the progenitors of these galaxies out to z ∼ 3. We use abundance-matching techniques to identify the main progenitors of these galaxies at higher redshifts. We measure the evolution in the stellar mass, rest-frame colors, morphologies, far-IR luminosities, and star formation rates, combining our deep multiwavelength imaging with near-IR Hubble Space Telescope imaging from Cosmic Near-IR Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS), and Spitzer and Herschel far-IR imaging from Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey-Herschel and CANDELS-Herschel. The typical MW-mass and M31-mass progenitors passed through the same evolution stages, evolving from blue, star-forming disk galaxies at the earliest stages to redder dust-obscured IR-luminous galaxies in intermediate stages and to red, more quiescent galaxies at their latest stages. The progenitors of the MW-mass galaxies reached each evolutionary stage at later times (lower redshifts) and with stellar masses that are a factor of two to three lower than the progenitors of the M31-mass galaxies. The process driving this evolution, including the suppression of star formation in present-day M* galaxies, requires an evolving stellar-mass/halo-mass ratio and/or evolving halo-mass threshold for quiescent galaxies. The effective size and SFRs imply that the baryonic cold-gas fractions drop as galaxies evolve from high redshift to z ∼ 0 and are strongly anticorrelated with an increase in the Sérsic index. Therefore, the growth of galaxy bulges in M* galaxies corresponds to a rapid decline in the galaxy gas fractions and/or a decrease in the star formation efficiency.
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.
Determination of the neutrino mass hierarchy (NMH) is among the most fundamental questions in particle physics. Recent measurements of 1) a large mixing angle between the first and the third neutrino mass eigenstates and 2) the first observation of atmospheric neutrino oscillations at tens of GeV with neutrino telescopes, open the intriguing new possibility to exploit matter effects in neutrino oscillation to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy. A further extension of IceCube/DeepCore called PINGU (Precision IceCube Next Generation Upgrade) has been recently envisioned with the ultimate goal to measure neutrino mass hierarchy. PINGU would consist of additional IceCube-like strings of detectors deployed in the deepest and cleanest ice in the center of IceCube. More densely deployed instrumentation would provide a threshold substantially below 10 GeV and enhance the sensitivity to the mass hierarchy signal in atmospheric neutrinos. Here we discuss an estimate of the PINGU sensitivity to the mass hierarchy determined using an approximation with an Asimov dataset and an oscillation parameter fit.
Neutrino oscillations, first measured in 1998 via atmospheric neutrinos, have provided the only current direct evidence for physics beyond the Standard Model of Elementary Particles. The full neutrino mixing, described by six parameters, has been measured in the last decade with the exception of the charge-parity phase and the ordering of the mass eigenstates (the neutrino mass hierarchy – NMH). A relatively large mixing-angle between the first and third mass eigenstates has opened the possibility of measuring the mass hierarchy via atmospheric neutrinos using very large volume detectors. A leading proposal to perform this measurement is the future low-energy extension to the IceCube–DeepCore detector, called PINGU (the Precision IceCube Next Generation Upgrade). By increasing the photocathode density in the DeepCore region, it is possible to lower the energy threshold in the fiducial volume to the region that is affected by the MSW [1, 2], and thus permits extraction of the hierarchy. Here we discuss the design of the PINGU detector, its sensitivity to the mass hierarchy (approximately 3σ in 3.5 years) and measurements of ν{sub μ} disappearance and ν{sub τ} appearance.
Several possibilities for extending the scalar sector of the Standard Model are considered. The conditions of calculation of Higgs bosons masses in the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model are discussed. The probable limits on mass parameters of Higgs bosons are analyzed. The role of minimum conditions as a physical criterion in a model with an extended scalar sector is defined.
The non-zero neutrino mixing angle θ{sub 13} has been discovered and precisely measured by the current generation short-baseline reactor neutrino experiments. It opens the gate of measuring the leptonic CP-violating phase and enables the neutrino mass ordering. The JUNO and RENO-50 proposals aim at resolving the neutrino mass ordering using reactors. The experiment design, physics sensitivity, technical challenges as well as the progresses of those two proposed experiments are reviewed in this paper.
We present a review of the physics reach and current status of the proposed India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO). We briefly outline details of the INO location and the present status of detector development. We then present the physics goals and simulation studies of the main detector, the magnetised Iron Calorimeter (ICAL) detector, to be housed in INO. The ICAL detector would make precision measurements of neutrino oscillation parameters with atmospheric neutrinos including a measurement of the neutrino mass hierarchy. Additional synergies with other experiments due to the complete insensitivity of ICAL to the CP phase are also discussed.
We elaborate on the dynamics of ionized interstellar medium in the presence of hidden photon dark matter. Our main focus is the ultra-light regime, where the hidden photon mass is smaller than the plasma frequency in the Milky Way. We point out that as a result of the Galactic plasma shielding direct detection of ultra-light photons in this mass range is especially challenging. However, we demonstrate that ultra-light hidden photon dark matter provides a powerful heating source for the ionized interstellar medium. This results in a strong bound on the kinetic mixing between hidden and regular photons all the way down to the hidden photon masses of order 10{sup −20} eV.