No Arabic abstract
We discuss the interplay between lepton asymmetry L and neutrino oscillations in the early Universe. Neutrino oscillations may suppress or enhance previously existing L. On the other hand L is capable to suppress or enhance neutrino oscillations. The mechanism of L enhancement in MSW resonant neutrino oscillations in the early Universe is numerically analyzed. L cosmological effects through neutrino oscillations are discussed. We discuss how L may change the cosmological BBN constraints on neutrino and show that BBN model with electron-sterile neutrino oscillations is extremely sensitive to L - it allows to obtain the most stringent constraints on L value. We discuss also the cosmological role of active-sterile neutrino mixing and L in connection with the indications about additional relativistic density in the early Universe, pointed out by BBN, CMB and LSS data and the analysis of global neutrino data.
We show how the two physically-distinct sources of CP-asymmetry relevant to scenarios of leptogenesis: (i) resonant mixing and (ii) oscillations between different flavours can be unambiguously identified within the Kadanoff-Baym formalism. These contributions are isolated by analyzing the spectral structure of the non-equilibrium propagators without relying on the definition of particle number densities. The mixing source is associated with the usual mass shells, whereas the oscillation source is identified with a third intermediate shell. In addition, we identify terms lying on the oscillation shell that can be interpreted as the destructive interference between mixing and oscillation. We confirm that identical shell structure is obtained in both the Heisenberg- and interaction-picture realizations of the Kadanoff-Baym formalism. In so doing, we illustrate the self-consistency and complementarity of these two approaches. The interaction-picture approach in particular has the advantage that it may be used to analyze all forms of mass spectra from quasi-degenerate through to hierarchical.
Dark Energy models are numerous and distinguishing between them is becoming difficult. However, using distinct observational probes can ease this quest and gives better assessment to the nature of Dark energy. To this end, the plausibility of neutrino oscillations to be a probe of Dark Energy models is investigated. First, a generalized formalism of neutrino (spinor field) interaction with a classical scalar field in curved space-time is presented. This formalism is then applied to two classes of Dark Energy models in a flat Friedman-Lema^itre-Robertson-Walker metric: a Cosmological Constant and scalar field Dark Energy coupled to neutrinos. By looking at the neutrino oscillation probabilitys evolution with redshift, these models can be distinguished, for certain neutrino and scalar field coupling properties. This evolution could be traced by neutrino flux in future underground, terrestrial or extraterrestrial neutrino telescopes, which would assess probing Dark Energy models with this technique.
We identify a plausible scenario based on quark-lepton symmetry which correlates long baseline oscillations with maximal mixing to sterile neutrinos. The implication for the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) is that the neutral current signal will be found to suffer the same suppression from the Standard Solar Model prediction as obtains for the charged current signal. Flavor mixing among active neutrinos is expected to occur on shorter baselines with smaller mixing amplitudes.
UHE neutrinos with $E>10^{17}$ eV can be produced by ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) interacting with CMB photons (cosmogenic neutrinos) and by top-down sources, such as topological defects (TD), superheavy dark matter (SHDM) and mirror matter. Cosmogenic neutrinos are reliably predicted and their fluxes can be numerically evaluated using the observed flux of UHECR. The lower limit for the flux is obtained for the case of pure proton composition of the observed UHECR. The rigorous upper limit for cosmogenic neutrino flux also exists. The maximum neutrino energy is determined by maximum energy of acceleration, which at least for the shock acceleration is expected not to exceed $10^{21} - 10^{22}$ eV. The top-down sources provide neutrino energies a few orders of magnitude higher, and this can be considered as a signature of these models. Oscillations play important role in UHE neutrino astronomy. At production of cosmogenic neutrinos $tau$-neutrinos are absent and $bar{ u}_e$ neutrinos are suppressed. These species, important for detection, appear in the observed fluxes due to oscillation. Mirror neutrinos cannot be observed directly, but due to oscillations to ordinary neutrinos they can provide the largest neutrino flux at the highest energies.
We propose a model to explain tiny masses of neutrinos with the lepton number conservation, where neither too heavy particles beyond the TeV-scale nor tiny coupling constants are required. Assignments of conserving lepton numbers to new fields result in an unbroken $Z_2$ symmetry that stabilizes the dark matter candidate (the lightest $Z_2$-odd particle). In this model, $Z_2$-odd particles play an important role to generate the mass of neutrinos. The scalar dark matter in our model can satisfy constraints on the dark matter abundance and those from direct searches. It is also shown that the strong first-order phase transition, which is required for the electroweak baryogenesis, can be realized in our model. In addition, the scalar potential can in principle contain CP-violating phases, which can also be utilized for the baryogenesis. Therefore, three problems in the standard model, namely absence of neutrino masses, the dark matter candidate, and the mechanism to generate baryon asymmetry of the Universe, may be simultaneously resolved at the TeV-scale. Phenomenology of this model is also discussed briefly.