Neutrino propagation in space-time is not constrained to be unitary if very light states - lighter than the active neutrinos - exist into which neutrinos may decay. If this is the case, neutrino flavor-change is governed by a handful of extra mixing and oscillation parameters, including new sources of CP-invariance violation. We compute the transition probabilities in the two- and three-flavor scenarios and discuss the different phenomenological consequences of the new physics. These are qualitatively different from other sources of unitarity violation discussed in the literature.
We study the effects of non-standard interactions on the oscillation pattern of atmospheric neutrinos. We use neutrino oscillograms as our main tool to infer the role of non-standard interactions (NSI) parameters at the probability level in the energy range, $E in [1,20]$ GeV and zenith angle range, $cos theta in [-1,0]$. We compute the event rates for atmospheric neutrino events in presence of NSI parameters in the energy range $E in [1,10]$ GeV for two different detector configurations - a magnetized iron calorimeter and an unmagnetized liquid Argon time projection chamber which have different sensitivities to NSI parameters due to their complementary characteristics. As an application, we discuss how NSI parameter, $epsilon_{mutau}$ impacts the determination of the correct octant of $theta_{23}$.
We discuss a novel effect in neutrinoless double beta (0{ u}{beta}{beta}) decay related with the fact that its underlying mechanisms take place in the nuclear matter environment. We study the neutrino exchange mechanism and demonstrate the possible impact of nuclear medium via Lepton Number Violating (LNV) 4-fermion interactions of neutrino with quarks from decaying nucleus. The net effect of these interactions is generation of an effective in-medium Majorana neutrino mass matrix. The enhanced rate of the 0{ u}{beta}{beta}-decay can lead to the apparent incompatibility of observations of the 0{ u}{beta}{beta}-decay with the value of the neutrino mass determined or restricted by the {beta}-decay and cosmological data. The effective neutrino masses and mixing are calculated for the complete set of the relevant 4-fermion neutrino-quark operators. Using experimental data on the 0{ u}{beta}{beta}-decay in combination with the {beta}-decay and cosmological data we evaluate the characteristic scales of the LNV operators: {Lambda} > 2.4 TeV.
We investigate different neutrino signals from the decay of dark matter particles to determine the prospects for their detection, and more specifically if any spectral signature can be disentangled from the background in present and future neutrino observatories. If detected, such a signal could bring an independent confirmation of the dark matter interpretation of the dramatic rise in the positron fraction above 10 GeV recently observed by the PAMELA satellite experiment and offer the possibility of distinguishing between astrophysical sources and dark matter decay or annihilation. In combination with other signals, it may also be possible to distinguish among different dark matter decay channels.
Non-unitary neutrino mixing in the light neutrino sector is a direct consequence of type-I seesaw neutrino mass models. In these models, light neutrino mixing is described by a sub-matrix of the full lepton mixing matrix and, then, it is not unitary in general. In consequence, neutrino oscillations are characterized by additional parameters, including new sources of CP violation. Here we perform a combined analysis of short and long-baseline neutrino oscillation data in this extended mixing scenario. We did not find a significant deviation from unitary mixing, and the complementary data sets have been used to constrain the non-unitarity parameters. We have also found that the T2K and NOvA tension in the determination of the Dirac CP-phase is not alleviated in the context of non-unitary neutrino mixing.
We review the propagation of light neutrinos in matter assuming that their mixing with heavy neutrinos is close to present experimental limits. The phenomenological implications of the non-unitarity of the light neutrino mixing matrix for neutrino oscillations are discussed. In particular we show that the resonance effect in neutrino propagation in matter persists, but for slightly modified values of the parameters and with the maximum reduced by a small amount proportional to the mixing between light and heavy neutrinos squared.