Flavour Mixing of Neutrinos and Baryon Asymmetry of the Universe

We investigate baryogenesis in the $\nu$MSM, which is the Minimal Standard Model (MSM) extended by three right-handed neutrinos with Majorana masses smaller than the weak scale. In this model the baryon asymmetry of the universe (BAU) is generated via flavour oscillation between right-handed neutrinos. We consider the case when BAU is solely originated from the CP violation in the mixing matrix of active neutrinos. We perform analytical and numerical estimations of the yield of BAU, and show how BAU depends on mixing angles and CP violating phases. It is found that the asymmetry in the inverted hierarchy for neutrino masses receives a suppression factor of about 4% comparing with the normal hierarchy case. It is, however, pointed out that, when $\theta_{13}=0$ and $\theta_{23} = \pi/4$, baryogenesis in the normal hierarchy becomes ineffective, and hence the inverted hierarchy case becomes significant to account for the present BAU.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure

Right-Handed Sneutrino as Cold Dark Matter of the Universe

We consider the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) extended by introducing three right-handed (s)neutrinos to account for neutrino masses in the oscillation experiments. Assuming that the neutrino masses are purely Dirac-type, the lightest right-handed sneutrino $\tilde \nu_R$ can be the lightest superparticle (LSP), which is a good candidate of cold dark matter (CDM) of the universe. We study the possibility of realizing $\tilde \nu_R$-CDM, paying a special attention to the production of $\tilde \nu_R$ via decay of the next-to-lightest superparticle (NLSP) after its freeze-out time. It is shown that the late decay of the MSSM-LSP (the LSP among superparticles in the MSSM) can produce a sufficient amount of $\tilde \nu_R$ to explain the observed dark-matter density, and that the $\tilde \nu_R$-CDM scenario can be realized in a wide range of parameter space. We also consider the constraint on the decay of MSSM-LSP from the big-bang nucleosynthesis (BBN); we found that the case with stau being the MSSM-LSP is severely constrained.Comment: 13 pages, 15 figures, revtex

Heavy neutrino search in accelerator-based experiments

We explore the feasibility of detecting heavy neutrinos by the existing facilities of neutrino experiments. A heavy neutrino in the mass range 1 MeV < M < 500 MeV is produced by pion or kaon decay, and decays to charged particles which leave signals in neutrino detectors. Taking the T2K experiment as a typical example, we estimate the heavy neutrino flux produced in the neutrino beam line. Due to massive nature of the heavy neutrino, the spectrum of the heavy neutrino is significantly different from that of the ordinary neutrinos. While the ordinary neutrinos are emitted to various directions in the laboratory frame due to their tiny masses, the heavy neutrinos tend to be emitted to the forward directions and frequently hit the detector.The sensitivity for the mixing parameters is studied by evaluating the number of signal events in the near detector ND280. For the electron-type mixing, the sensitivity of T2K at 10^{21} POT is found to be better than that of the previous experiment PS191, which has placed the most stringent bounds on the mixing parameters of the heavy neutrinos for 140 MeV< M < 500 MeV.Comment: 26 pages, 17 figure

Gravitinos from Heavy Scalar Decay

Cosmological issues of the gravitino production by the decay of a heavy scalar field $X$ are examined, assuming that the damped coherent oscillation of the scalar once dominates the energy of the universe. The coupling of the scalar field to a gravitino pair is estimated both in spontaneous and explicit supersymmetry breaking scenarios, with the result that it is proportional to the vacuum expectation value of the scalar field in general. Cosmological constraints depend on whether the gravitino is stable or not, and we study each case separately. For the unstable gravitino with $M_{3/2} \sim$ 100GeV--10TeV, we obtain not only the upper bound, but also the lower bound on the reheating temperature after the $X$ decay, in order to retain the success of the big-bang nucleosynthesis. It is also shown that it severely constrains the decay rate into the gravitino pair. For the stable gravitino, similar but less stringent bounds are obtained to escape the overclosure by the gravitinos produced at the $X$ decay. The requirement that the free-streaming effect of such gravitinos should not suppress the cosmic structures at small scales eliminates some regions in the parameter space, but still leaves a new window of the gravitino warm dark matter. Implications of these results to inflation models are discussed. In particular, it is shown that modular inflation will face serious cosmological difficulty when the gravitino is unstable, whereas it can escape the constraints for the stable gravitino. A similar argument offers a solution to the cosmological moduli problem, in which the moduli is relatively heavy while the gravitino is light.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure