No Arabic abstract
The OPERA collaboration has claimed evidence of superluminal { u}{_mu} propagation between CERN and the LNGS. Cohen and Glashow argued that such neutrinos should lose energy by producing photons and e+e- pairs, through Z0 mediated processes analogous to Cherenkov radiation. In terms of the parameter delta=(v^2_nu-v^2_c)/v^2_c, the OPERA result implies delta = 5 x 10^-5. For this value of delta a very significant deformation of the neutrino energy spectrum and an abundant production of photons and e+e- pairs should be observed at LNGS. We present an analysis based on the 2010 and part of the 2011 data sets from the ICARUS experiment, located at Gran Sasso National Laboratory and using the same neutrino beam from CERN. We find that the rates and deposited energy distributions of neutrino events in ICARUS agree with the expectations for an unperturbed spectrum of the CERN neutrino beam. Our results therefore refute a superluminal interpretation of the OPERA result according to the Cohen and Glashow prediction for a weak current analog to Cherenkov radiation. In particular no superluminal Cherenkov like e+e- pair or gamma emission event has been directly observed inside the fiducial volume of the bubble chamber like ICARUS TPC-LAr detector, setting the much stricter limit of delta < 2.5 10^-8 at the 90% confidence level, comparable with the one due to the observations from the SN1987A.
We show that the more energetic superluminal neutrinos with quadratically dispersed superluminalities delta=beta^2-1, for beta=v/c where v is the neutrino velocity, also lose significant energy to radiation to the u+e^-+e^+ final state in travelling from CERN to Gran Sasso as has been shown to occur for those with constant superluminality by Cohen and Glashow if indeed delta simeq 5times 10^{-5}. In addition, we clarify the dependence of such radiative processes on the size of the superluminality.
Earth-skimming neutrinos are those which travel through the Earths crust at a shallow angle. For Ultra-High-Energy (E > 1 PeV; UHE) earth-skimming tau neutrinos, there is a high-probability that the tau lepton created by a neutrino-Earth interaction will emerge from the ground before it decays. When this happens, the decaying tau particle initiates an air shower of relativistic sub-atomic particles which emit Cherenkov radiation. To observe this Cherenkov radiation, we propose the Trinity Observatory. Using a novel optical structure design, pointing at the horizon, Trinity will observe the Cherenkov radiation from upward-going neutrino-induced air showers. Being sensitive to neutrinos in the 1-10,000 PeV energy range, Trinitys expected sensitivity will have a unique role to play filling the gap between the observed astrophysical neutrinos observed by IceCube and the expected sensitivity of radio UHE neutrino detectors.
We report on a search for heavy neutrinos in B-meson decays. The results are obtained using a data sample that contains 772x10^6 BB-bar pairs collected at the Upsilon(4S) resonance with the Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric-energy e+e- collider. No signal is observed and upper limits are set on mixing of heavy neutrinos with left-handed neutrinos of the Standard Model in the mass range 0.5 - 5.0 GeV/c^2.
DANSS is a highly segmented 1~m${}^3$ plastic scintillator detector. Its 2500 one meter long scintillator strips have a Gd-loaded reflective cover. The DANSS detector is placed under an industrial 3.1~$mathrm{GW_{th}}$ reactor of the Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant 350~km NW from Moscow. The distance to the core is varied on-line from 10.7~m to 12.7~m. The reactor building provides about 50~m water-equivalent shielding against the cosmic background. DANSS detects almost 5000 $widetilde u_e$ per day at the closest position with the cosmic background less than 3$%$. The inverse beta decay process is used to detect $widetilde u_e$. Sterile neutrinos are searched for assuming the $4 u$ model (3 active and 1 sterile $ u$). The exclusion area in the $Delta m_{14}^2,sin^22theta_{14}$ plane is obtained using a ratio of positron energy spectra collected at different distances. Therefore results do not depend on the shape and normalization of the reactor $widetilde u_e$ spectrum, as well as on the detector efficiency. Results are based on 966 thousand antineutrino events collected at 3 distances from the reactor core. The excluded area covers a wide range of the sterile neutrino parameters up to $sin^22theta_{14}<0.01$ in the most sensitive region.
The Standard Model of particle physics is still lacking an understanding of the generation and nature of neutrino masses. A favorite theoretical scenario (the see-saw mechanism) is that both Dirac and Majorana mass terms are present, leading to the existence of heavy partners of the light neutrinos, presumably massive and nearly sterile. These heavy neutrinos can be searched for at high energy lepton colliders of very high luminosity, such as the Future electron-positron e+e- Circular Collider, FCC-ee (TLEP), presently studied within the Future Circular Collider design study at CERN, as a possible first step. A first look at sensitivities, both from neutrino counting and from direct search for heavy neutrino decay, are presented. The number of neutrinos should be measurable with a precision between 0.001 - 0.0004, while the direct search appears very promising due to the long lifetime of heavy neutrinos for small mixing angles. A sensitivity down to a heavy-light mixing of 10^{-12} is obtained, covering a large phase-space for heavy neutrino masses between 10 and 80 GeV/c2.