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Register a new userNon-Standard Models, Solar Neutrinos, and Large theta_{13}
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Solar neutrino experiments have yet to see directly the transition region between matter-enhanced and vacuum oscillations. The transition region is particularly sensitive to models of non-standard neutrino interactions and propagation. We examine several such non-standard models, which predict a lower-energy transition region and a flatter survival probability for the ^{8}B solar neutrinos than the standard large-mixing angle (LMA) model. We find that while some of the non-standard models provide a better fit to the solar neutrino data set, the large measured value of theta_{13} and the size of the experimental uncertainties lead to a low statistical significance for these fits. We have also examined whether simple changes to the solar density profile can lead to a flatter ^{8}B survival probability than the LMA prediction, but find that this is not the case for reasonable changes. We conclude that the data in this critical region is still too poor to determine whether any of these models, or LMA, is the best description of the data.
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We present the results of a Bayesian analysis of solar and KamLAND neutrino data in the framework of three-neutrino mixing. We adopt two approaches for the prior probability distribution of the oscillation parameters Delta m^2_{21}, sin^2 theta_{12}, sin^2 theta_{13}: 1) a traditional flat uninformative prior; 2) an informative prior which describes the limits on sin^2 theta_{13} obtained in atmospheric and long-baseline accelerator and reactor neutrino experiments. In both approaches, we present the allowed regions in the sin^2 theta_{13} - Delta m^2_{21} and sin^2 theta_{12} - sin^2 theta_{13} planes, as well as the marginal posterior probability distribution of sin^2 theta_{13}. We confirm the 1.2 sigma hint of theta_{13} > 0 found in hep-ph/0806.2649 from the analysis of solar and KamLAND neutrino data. We found that the statistical significance of the hint is reduced to about 0.8 sigma by the constraints on sin^2 theta_{13} coming from atmospheric and long-baseline accelerator and reactor neutrino data, in agreement with arXiv:0808.2016.
The smallness of the $theta_{13}$ mixing angle as observed in neutrino oscillation experiments can be understood through an approximated $mu - tau$ exchange symmetry in the neutrino mass matrix. Using recent oscillation neutrino data, but assuming no textit{CP} violation, we study $mu-tau$ breaking parameter space to establish the conditions under which such a breaking could have a perturbative origin. According to the so-obtained conditions, we suggest that a sterile neutrino, matching LSND/MiniBooNE neutrino oscillation results, could provide the necessary ingredients to properly fix atmospheric and $theta_{13}$ mixing angles to observable values, without exceeding the sterile neutrino fraction bound in solar oscillations. In such a scenario, we analyze the general effect of a fourth neutrino on the prediction for the effective $m_{ee}$ majorana mass parameter.
We extract information on the fluxes of Be and CNO neutrinos directly from solar neutrino experiments, with minimal assumptions about solar models. Next we compare these results with solar models, both standard and non standard ones. Finally we discuss the expectations for Borexino, both in the case of standard and non standard neutrinos.
After a short survey of the physics of solar neutrinos, giving an overview of hydrogen burning reactions, predictions of standard solar models and results of solar neutrino experiments, we discuss the solar-model-independent indications in favour of non-standard neutrino properties. The experimental results look to be in contradiction with each other, even disregarding some experiment: unless electron neutrinos disappear in their trip from the sun to the earth, the fluxes of intermediate energy neutrinos (those from 7Be electron capture and from the CNO cycle) result to be unphysically negative, or anyway extremely reduced with respect to standard solar model predictions. Next we review extensively non-standard solar models built as attempts to solve the solar neutrino puzzle. The dependence of the central solar temperature on chemical composition, opacity, age and on the values of the astrophysical S-factors for hydrogen-burning reactions is carefully investigated. Also, possible modifications of the branching among the various pp-chains in view of nuclear physics uncertainties are examined. Assuming standard neutrinos, all solar models examined fail in reconciling theory with experiments, even when the physical and chemical inputs are radically changed with respect to present knowledge and even if some of the experimental results are discarded.
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.
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