Publications

Article

Search for Gamma-ray Counterparts of Newly Discovered Radio Astrophysical Sources
We study two newly discovered classes of radio sources: the highly energetic, short-lived events, known as Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), and a new category of compact radio galaxies known as...
Año de publicación: 2019
Revisiting quantum decoherence for neutrino oscillations in matter with constant density
We reexamine the matter neutrino oscillation probabilities considering the decoherence phenomenon as a subleading effect. In this paper we point out the relevance of having the correct interpretation of the decoherence matrix in the different quantum bases, within the framework of neutrino oscillation probabilities in matter. Based on this treatment we develop an analytical formula for matter neutrino oscillation probabilities for three generations, with a range of application up to the decoherence parameter Γ∼10-23  GeV. We observe that, due to decoherence, the amplitudes of the neutrino/antineutrino oscillation probabilities increase in an energy independent way. We also find that decoherence can reduce the absolute value of the CP asymmetry, relative to its value at the pure oscillation case. As a side effect we have found a degeneracy between the decoherence parameter Γ and the CP violation phase δ.
Año de publicación: 2018
Matter effects in neutrino visible decay at future long-baseline experiments
Neutrino visible decay in the presence of matter is re-evaluated. We study these effects in two future long-baseline experiments where matter effects are relevant: DUNE (1300 km) and a hypothetical beam aimed towards ANDES (7650 km). We find that matter effects are negligible for the visible component of neutrino decay at DUNE, being much more relevant at ANDES. We perform a detailed simulation of DUNE, considering νμ disappearance and νe appearance channels, for both FHC and RHC modes. The sensitivity to the decay constant α3 can be as low as 2×10−6 eV2 at 90% C.L., depending on the neutrino masses and type of coupling. We also show the impact of neutrino decay in the determination of θ23 and δCP, and find that the best-fit value of θ23 can move from a true value at the lower octant towards the higher octant.
Año de publicación: 2018
Constraining sleptons at the LHC in a supersymmetric low-scale seesaw scenario
We consider a scenario inspired by natural supersymmetry, where neutrino data is explained within a low-scale seesaw scenario. We extend the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model by adding light right-handed neutrinos and their superpartners, the R-sneutrinos, and consider the lightest neutralinos to be higgsino-like. We consider the possibilities of having either an R-sneutrino or a higgsino as lightest supersymmetric particle. Assuming that squarks and gauginos are heavy, we systematically evaluate the bounds on slepton masses due to existing LHC data.
Año de publicación: 2017
Visible neutrino decay in the light of appearance and disappearance long-baseline experiments
We investigate the present constraints from MINOS and T2K experiments for the neutrino decay scenario induced by non-diagonal couplings of Majorons to neutrinos. As novelty, on top of the typical invisible decay prescription, we add the contribution of visible decay, where final products can be observed. This new effect depends on the nature of the neutrino-Majoron coupling, which can be of scalar or pseudoscalar type. Using the combination of disappearance data from MINOS and disappearance and appearance data from T2K, for normal ordering, we constrain the decay parameter α ≡ E Γ for the heaviest neutrino, where E and Γ are the neutrino energy and width, respectively. We find that when considering visible decay within appearance data, one can improve current neutrino long-baseline constraints up to 𝛼<(10−5) eV2, at 90% C.L., for both kinds of couplings, which is better by one order of magnitude compared to previous bounds.
Año de publicación: 2017
Testing FLUKA on neutron activation of Si and Ge at nuclear research reactor using gamma spectroscopy
Samples of two characteristic semiconductor sensor materials, silicon and germanium, have been irradiated with neutrons produced at the RP-10 Nuclear Research Reactor at 4.5 MW. Their radionuclides photon spectra have been measured with high resolution gamma spectroscopy, quantifying four radioisotopes (28Al, 29Al for Si and 75Ge and 77Ge for Ge). We have compared the radionuclides production and their emission spectrum data with Monte Carlo simulation results from FLUKA. Thus we have tested FLUKA’s low energy neutron library (ENDF/B-VIIR) and decay photon scoring with respect to the activation of these semiconductors. We conclude that FLUKA is capable of predicting relative photon peak amplitudes, with gamma intensities greater than 1%, of produced radionuclides with an average uncertainty of 13%. This work allows us to estimate the corresponding systematic error on neutron activation simulation studies of these sensor materials.
Año de publicación: 2017
Roadmap for searching cosmic rays correlated with the extraterrestrial neutrinos seen at IceCube
We have built sky maps showing the expected arrival directions of 120 EeV ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) directionally correlated with the latest astrophysical neutrino tracks observed at IceCube, including the four-year high-energy starting events (HESEs) and the two-year northern tracks, taken as point sources. We have considered contributions to UHECR deflections from the Galactic and the extragalactic magnetic field and a UHECR composition compatible with the current expectations. We have used the Jansson-Farrar JF12 model for the Galactic magnetic field and an extragalactic magnetic field strength of 1 nG and coherence length of 1 Mpc. We observe that the regions outside of the Galactic plane are more strongly correlated with the neutrino tracks than those adjacent to or in it, where IceCube HESE events 37 and 47 are good candidates to search for excesses, or anisotropies, in the UHECR flux. On the other hand, clustered northern tracks around (l,b)=(0°,−30°) and (l,b)=(−150°,−30°) are promising candidates for a stacked point source search. For example, we have focused on the region of UHECR arrival directions, at 150 EeV, correlated with IceCube HESE event 37 located at (l,b)=(−137.1°,65.8°) in the northern hemisphere, far away from the Galactic plane, obtaining an angular size ∼5°, being ∼3° for 200 EeV and ∼8° for 120 EeV. We report a p value of 0.20 for a stacked point source search using current Auger and Telescope Array data, consistent with current results from both collaborations. Using Telescope Array data alone, we found a projected live time of 72 years to find correlations, but clearly this must improve with the planned Auger upgrade.
Año de publicación: 2017
LHC forward physics
In early 2013 the LHC forward physics and diffraction working group (WG) was formed, as part of the activities of common interest to the LHC experiments organized by the LHC...
Año de publicación: 2016
The Minimal 3 + 2 Neutrino Model vs. Higgs Decays
The minimal 3+2 neutrino model is a Type-I seesaw model with two Weyl fermions, singlets under the Standard Model. Apart from light neutrino masses and mixings, this model can be fully described by four additional parameters. In this work, we study the minimal 3+2 neutrino model in scenarios where the singlets have masses at the GeV scale. This can lead to Higgs decays into heavy neutrinos, which could be observable as displaced vertices at the LHC.
Año de publicación: 2016
Impact of Galactic magnetic field modeling on searches of point sources via ultrahigh energy cosmic ray-neutrino correlations
We apply the Jansson-Farrar JF12 magnetic field model in the context of point source searches by correlating the Telescope Array ultrahigh energy cosmic ray data and the IceCube-40 neutrino candidates, as well as other magnetic field hypotheses. Our field hypotheses are: no magnetic field, the JF12 field considering only the regular component, the JF12 full magnetic field, which is a combination of regular and random field components, and the standard turbulent magnetic field used in previous correlation analyses. As expected from a neutrino sample such as IceCube-40, consistent with atmospheric neutrinos, we have found no significant correlation signal in all the cases. Therefore, this paper is mainly devoted to the comparison of the effect of the different magnetic field hypotheses on the minimum neutrino source flux strength required for a 5σ discovery and the derived 90% C.L. upper limits. We also incorporate in our comparison the cases of different power law indices α=2.2, α=2.5 for the neutrino point source flux. The differences in the 5σ discovery flux for our magnetic field hypotheses is ∼1%–50%, being the maximum difference with the regular JF12 field and standard turbulent field models, being the standard turbulent higher than the regular one, while the minimum is between the no magnetic field and regular JF12 field. Considering the current flux upper limits, we find that IceCube requires a lifetime ≳5  years to observe neutrino-UHECR correlation signals. Our analysis for different power law indices yielded the same relative behavior between different magnetic field models.
Año de publicación: 2016