First CNGS events detected by LVD

The CERN Neutrino to Gran Sasso (CNGS) project aims to produce a high energy, wide band $\nu_{\mu}$ beam at CERN and send it toward the INFN Gran Sasso National Laboratory (LNGS), 732 km away. Its main goal is the observation of the $\nu_{\tau}$ appearance, through neutrino flavour oscillation. The beam started its operation in August 2006 for about 12 days: a total amount of $7.6~10^{17}$ protons were delivered to the target. The LVD detector, installed in hall A of the LNGS and mainly dedicated to the study of supernova neutrinos, was fully operating during the whole CNGS running time. A total number of 569 events were detected in coincidence with the beam spill time. This is in good agreement with the expected number of events from Montecarlo simulations.Comment: Accepted for publication by the European Physical Journal C ; 7 pages, 11 figure

Neutrino oscillations in vortex and twisting magnetic fields

The behavior of the neutrino flux in vortex and twisting magnetic fields is considered within the left-right symmetric model. By way of illustration of the magnetic fields we discuss the magnetic fields of the coupled sunspots (CS's) which are the sources of the future solar flares. It is expected that the neutrinos have such multipole moments as the charge radius, the magnetic and anapole moments. The evolution equation in the Schrodinger-like form is found and all magnetic-induced resonance conversions are analyzed. It is demonstrated that in the case of the super flares one may detect the depletion of the $\nu_{eL}$ neutrinos caused by their resonance absorptions when they travel through the CS magnetic fields. Observations of this phenomena could be carried out at neutrino telescopes of the next generation whose work is based on the reaction of the coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering.Comment: 25 page

Excited States of Proton-bound DNA/RNA Base Homo-dimers: Pyrimidines

We are presenting the electronic photo fragment spectra of the protonated pyrimidine DNA bases homo-dimers. Only the thymine dimer exhibits a well structured vibrational progression, while protonated monomer shows broad vibrational bands. This shows that proton bonding can block some non radiative processes present in the monomer.Comment: We acknowledge the use of the computing facility cluster GMPCS of the LUMAT federation (FR LUMAT 2764

On-line recognition of supernova neutrino bursts in the LVD detector

In this paper we show the capabilities of the Large Volume Detector (INFN Gran Sasso National Laboratory) to identify a neutrino burst associated to a supernova explosion, in the absence of an "external trigger", e.g., an optical observation. We describe how the detector trigger and event selection have been optimized for this purpose, and we detail the algorithm used for the on-line burst recognition. The on-line sensitivity of the detector is defined and discussed in terms of supernova distance and electron anti-neutrino intensity at the source.Comment: Accepted for pubblication on Astroparticle Physics. 13 pages, 10 figure

On the massless "just-so" solution to the solar neutrino problem

We study the effect of the non-resonant, vacuum oscillation-like neutrino flavor conversion induced by non-standard flavor changing and non-universal flavor diagonal neutrino interactions with electrons in the sun. We have found an acceptable fit for the combined analysis for the solar experiments total rates, the Super-Kamiokande (SK) energy spectrum and zenith angle dependence. Phenomenological constraints on non-standard flavor changing and non-universal flavor diagonal neutrino interactions are considered.Comment: 4 pages, Latex, uses eps

First events from the CNGS neutrino beam detected in the OPERA experiment

The OPERA neutrino detector at the underground Gran Sasso Laboratory (LNGS) was designed to perform the first detection of neutrino oscillations in appearance mode, through the study of nu_mu to nu_tau oscillations. The apparatus consists of a lead/emulsion-film target complemented by electronic detectors. It is placed in the high-energy, long-baseline CERN to LNGS beam (CNGS) 730 km away from the neutrino source. In August 2006 a first run with CNGS neutrinos was successfully conducted. A first sample of neutrino events was collected, statistically consistent with the integrated beam intensity. After a brief description of the beam and of the various sub-detectors, we report on the achievement of this milestone, presenting the first data and some analysis results.Comment: Submitted to the New Journal of Physic

Measurement of the atmospheric muon charge ratio with the OPERA detector

The OPERA detector at the Gran Sasso underground laboratory (LNGS) was used to measure the atmospheric muon charge ratio in the TeV energy region. We analyzed 403069 atmospheric muons corresponding to 113.4 days of livetime during the 2008 CNGS run. We computed separately the muon charge ratio for single and for multiple muon events in order to select different energy regions of the primary cosmic ray spectrum and to test the charge ratio dependence on the primary composition. The measured charge ratio values were corrected taking into account the charge-misidentification errors. Data have also been grouped in five bins of the "vertical surface energy". A fit to a simplified model of muon production in the atmosphere allowed the determination of the pion and kaon charge ratios weighted by the cosmic ray energy spectrum.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figure

The Higgs boson decays with the lepton flavor violation

Within the left-right symmetric model (LRM) the decays $$S_1\to\mu^++\tau^-,\qquad S_1\to\mu^-+\tau^+$$ where $S_1$ is an analog of the standard model Higgs boson, are considered. The widths of this decays are found in the third order of the perturbation theory. Since the main contribution to the decay widths is caused by the diagram with the light and heavy neutrinos in the virtual state then investigation of this decays could shed light upon the neutrino sector structure. The obtained decay widths critically depend on the charged gauge bosons mixing angle $\xi$ and the heavy-light neutrinos mixing angle $\varphi$. The LRM predicts the values of these angles as functions of the vacuum expectation values $v_L$ and $v_R$. Using the results of the existing experiments, on looking for the additional charged gauge boson $W_2$ and on measuring the electroweak $\rho$ parameter, gives $$\sin\xi\leq5\times10^{-4},\qquad\sin\varphi\leq2.3\times10^{-2}.$$ However, even using the upper bounds on $\sin\xi$ and $\sin\varphi$ one does not manage to get the upper experimental bound on the branching ratio \mbox{BR}(S_1\to\tau\mu)_{exp} being equal to $0.25\times10^{-2}$. The theoretical expression proves to be on two orders of magnitude less than \mbox{BR}(S_1\to\tau\mu)_{exp}.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figur