Response of a proportional counter to 37^{37}Ar and 71^{71}Ge: measured spectra versus Geant4 simulation

The energy deposition spectra of $^{37}$Ar and $^{71}$Ge in a miniature proportional counter are measured and compared in detail to the model response simulated with Geant4. A certain modification of the Geant4 code, making it possible to trace the deexcitation of atomic shells properly, is suggested. Modified Geant4 is able to reproduce a response of particle detectors in detail in the keV energy range. This feature is very important for the laboratory experiments that search for massive sterile neutrinos as well as for dark matter searches that employ direct detection of recoil nuclei. This work demonstrates the reliability of Geant4 simulation at low energies.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures; minor changes were done 02 Mar 2016 acording to reviewer's suggestions (English was improved, figures were combined, some words and sentences were corrected including the title), no results and conclusions were change

Berry Phase in Neutrino Oscillations

We study the Berry phase in neutrino oscillations for both Dirac and Majorana neutrinos. In order to have a Berry phase, the neutrino oscillations must occur in a varying medium, the neutrino-background interactions must depend on at least two independent densities, and also there must be CP violation if the neutrino interactions with matter are mediated only by the standard model W and Z boson exchanges which implies that there must be at least three generations of neutrinos. The CP violating Majorana phases do not play a role in generating a Berry phase. We show that a natural way to satisfy the conditions for the generation of a Berry phase is to have sterile neutrinos with active-sterile neutrino mixing, in which case at least two active and one sterile neutrinos are required. If there are additional new CP violating flavor changing interactions, it is also possible to have a non-zero Berry phase with just two generations.Comment: RevTex 16 pages, no figures, new discussions about sterile neutrino added,typos corrected and errors in references correcte

Leptonic CP violation studies at MiniBooNE in the (3+2) sterile neutrino oscillation hypothesis

We investigate the extent to which leptonic CP-violation in (3+2) sterile neutrino models leads to different oscillation probabilities for $\bar{\nu}_{\mu}\to\bar{\nu}_e$ and $\nu_{\mu}\to\nu_e$ oscillations at MiniBooNE. We are using a combined analysis of short-baseline (SBL) oscillation results, including the LSND and null SBL results, to which we impose additional constraints from atmospheric oscillation data. We obtain the favored regions in MiniBooNE oscillation probability space for both (3+2) CP-conserving and (3+2) CP-violating models. We further investigate the allowed CP-violation phase values and the MiniBooNE reach for such a CP violation measurement. The analysis shows that the oscillation probabilities in MiniBooNE neutrino and antineutrino running modes can differ significantly, with the latter possibly being as much as three times larger than the first. In addition, we also show that all possible values of the single CP-violation phase measurable at short baselines in (3+2) models are allowed within 99% CL by existing data.Comment: Fixed a typo following PRD Erratum. 8 pages, 5 figure

The solar neutrino problem after three hundred days of data at SuperKamiokande

We present an updated analysis of the solar neutrino problem in terms of both Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein (MSW) and vacuum neutrino oscillations, with the inclusion of the preliminary data collected by the SuperKamiokande experiment during 306.3 days of operation. In particular, the observed energy spectrum of the recoil electrons from 8B neutrino scattering is discussed in detail and is used to constrain the mass-mixing parameter space. It is shown that: 1) the small mixing MSW solution is preferred over the large mixing one; 2) the vacuum oscillation solutions are strongly constrained by the energy spectrum measurement; and 3) the detection of a possible semiannual modulation of the 8B \nu flux due to vacuum oscillations should require at least one more year of operation of SuperKamiokande.Comment: 15 pages (RevTeX) + 8 figures (postscript). Requires epsfig.st

Lepton Numbers in the framework of Neutrino Mixing

In this short review we discuss the notion of lepton numbers. The strong evidence in favor of neutrino oscillations obtained recently in the Super-Kamiokande atmospheric neutrino experiment and in solar neutrino experiments imply that the law of conservation of family lepton numbers L_e, L_mu and L_tau is strongly violated. We consider the states of flavor neutrinos nu_e, nu_mu and nu_tau and we discuss the evolution of these states in space and time in the case of non-conservation of family lepton numbers due to the mixing of light neutrinos. We discuss and compare different flavor neutrino discovery experiments. We stress that experiments on the search for nu_mu->nu_tau and nu_e->nu_tau oscillations demonstrated that the flavor neutrino nu_tau is a new type of neutrino, different from nu_e and nu_mu. In the case of neutrino mixing, the lepton number (only one) is connected with the nature of massive neutrinos. Such conserved lepton number exist if massive neutrinos are Dirac particles. We review possibilities to check in future experiments whether the conserved lepton number exists.Comment: 20 page

Confronting mass-varying neutrinos with MiniBooNE

We study the proposal that mass-varying neutrinos could provide an explanation for the LSND signal for \bar\nu_mu to \bar\nu_e oscillations. We first point out that all positive oscillation signals occur in matter and that three active mass-varying neutrinos are insufficient to describe all existing neutrino data including LSND. We then examine the possibility that a model with four mass-varying neutrinos (three active and one sterile) can explain the LSND effect and remain consistent with all other neutrino data. We find that such models with a 3+1 mass structure in the neutrino sector may explain the LSND data and a null MiniBooNE result for 0.10 < \sin^2 2\theta_x < 0.30. Predictions of the model include a null result at Double-CHOOZ, but positive signals for underground reactor experiments and for \nu_\mu to \nu_e oscillations in long-baseline experiments.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Comment added about recent MINOS dat

Probing non-standard decoherence effects with solar and KamLAND neutrinos

It has been speculated that quantum gravity might induce a "foamy" space-time structure at small scales, randomly perturbing the propagation phases of free-streaming particles (such as kaons, neutrons, or neutrinos). Particle interferometry might then reveal non-standard decoherence effects, in addition to standard ones (due to, e.g., finite source size and detector resolution.) In this work we discuss the phenomenology of such non-standard effects in the propagation of electron neutrinos in the Sun and in the long-baseline reactor experiment KamLAND, which jointly provide us with the best available probes of decoherence at neutrino energies E ~ few MeV. In the solar neutrino case, by means of a perturbative approach, decoherence is shown to modify the standard (adiabatic) propagation in matter through a calculable damping factor. By assuming a power-law dependence of decoherence effects in the energy domain (E^n with n = 0,+/-1,+/-2), theoretical predictions for two-family neutrino mixing are compared with the data and discussed. We find that neither solar nor KamLAND data show evidence in favor of non-standard decoherence effects, whose characteristic parameter gamma_0 can thus be significantly constrained. In the "Lorentz-invariant" case n=-1, we obtain the upper limit gamma_0<0.78 x 10^-26 GeV at 95% C.L. In the specific case n=-2, the constraints can also be interpreted as bounds on possible matter density fluctuations in the Sun, which we improve by a factor of ~ 2 with respect to previous analyses.Comment: Minor changes. Version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Neutrino helicity asymmetries in leptogenesis

It is pointed out that the heavy singlet neutrinos characteristic of leptogenesis develop asymmetries in the abundances of the two helicity states as a result of the same mechanism that generates asymmetries in the standard lepton sector. Neutrinos and standard leptons interchange asymmetries in collisions with each other. It is shown that an appropriate quantum number, B-L', combining baryon, lepton and neutrino asymmetries, is not violated as fast as the standard B-L. This suppresses the washout effects relevant for the derivation of the final baryon asymmetry. One presents detailed calculations for the period of neutrino thermal production in the framework of the singlet seesaw mechanism.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, revtex, matches PRD versio

Imprint of SNO neutral current data on the solar neutrino problem

We perform a global analysis in the framework of two active neutrino oscillations of all solar neutrino data, including the recent SNO day and night spectra (comprised of the charged current (CC), elastic scattering (ES) and neutral current (NC) events), the Super-Kamiokande (SK) day and night spectra (from 1496 days) and the updated SAGE results. We find that the Large Mixing Angle (LMA) solution is selected at the 99% C.L.; the best-fit parameters are \Delta m^2=5.6 \times 10^{-5} eV^2 and \theta=32^{\circ}. No solutions with \theta\geq \pi/4 are allowed at the 5\sigma C.L. Oscillations to a pure sterile state are excluded at 5.3\sigma, but a sizeable sterile neutrino component could still be present in the solar flux.Comment: Version to appear in PL