The cosmic background neutrino of temperature 1.9 K affects rates of radiative emission of neutrino pair (RENP) from metastable excited atoms, since its presence blocks the pair emission by the Pauli exclusion principle. We quantitatively investigate how the Pauli blocking distorts the photon energy spectrum and calculate its sensitivity to cosmic parameters such as the neutrino temperature and its chemical potential. Important quantities for high sensitivities to these parameter measurement are found to be the level spacing of atomic de-excitation and the unknown mass value of lightest neutrino, in particular their mutual relation.
We study the distortions of equilibrium spectra of relic neutrinos due to the interactions with electrons, positrons, and neutrinos in the early Universe. We solve the integro-differential kinetic equations for the neutrino density matrix, including three-flavor oscillations and finite temperature corrections from QED up to the next-to-leading order $mathcal{O}(e^3)$ for the first time. In addition, the equivalent kinetic equations in the mass basis of neutrinos are directly solved, and we numerically evaluate the distortions of the neutrino spectra in the mass basis as well, which can be easily extrapolated into those for non-relativistic neutrinos in the current Universe. In both bases, we find the same value of the effective number of neutrinos, $N_{rm eff} = 3.044$, which parameterizes the total neutrino energy density. The estimated error for the value of $N_{rm eff}$ due to the numerical calculations and the choice of neutrino mixing parameters would be at most 0.0005.
We reconsider the problem of the birefringence of electromagnetic (EM) waves in a medium consisting of a plasma and a $ ubar{ u}$-gas within the Standard Model of particle physics. The considered effect arises in such a medium due to the parity violation for the electroweak neutrino-electron interaction. Our recent calculations of the electroweak correction to the photon polarization operator in the electroweak plasma allow us to significantly improve some previous estimates of such effect in astrophysics. We estimate the rotary power for EM waves propagating in a non-relativistic plasma in the intergalactic space and interacting with the gas of relic neutrinos and antineutrinos there. We show that, in presence of a plasma, the EM wave birefringence effect in a $ ubar{ u}$-gas exceeds significantly that effect in a $ ubar{ u}$-gas in empty space considered earlier. These previous treatments of the birefringence relied on the calculations of the refraction index for on-shell photons in vacuum using the forward scattering amplitude $gamma uto gamma u$ with virtual charged leptons in Feynman diagrams. The possibility to observe experimentally the new effect suggested here is discussed.
Neutrino- and antineutrino-oxygen neutral-current quasielastic-like interactions are measured at Super-Kamiokande using nuclear de-excitation $gamma$-rays to identify signal-like interactions in data from a $14.94 (16.35)times 10^{20}$ protons-on-target exposure of the T2K neutrino (antineutrino) beam. The measured flux-averaged cross sections on oxygen nuclei are $langle sigma_{ u {rm -NCQE}} rangle = 1.70 pm 0.17 ({rm stat.}) ^{+ {rm 0.51}}_{- {rm 0.38}} ({rm syst.}) times 10^{-38} {rm cm^2/oxygen}$ with a flux-averaged energy of 0.82 GeV and $langle sigma_{bar{ u} {rm -NCQE}} rangle = 0.98 pm 0.16 ({rm stat.}) ^{+ {rm 0.26}}_{- {rm 0.19}} ({rm syst.}) times 10^{-38} {rm cm^2/oxygen}$ with a flux-averaged energy of 0.68 GeV, for neutrinos and antineutrinos, respectively. These results are the most precise to date, and the antineutrino result is the first cross section measurement of this channel. They are compared with various theoretical predictions. The impact on evaluation of backgrounds to searches for supernova relic neutrinos at present and future water Cherenkov detectors is also discussed.
For particle physics observables at colliders such as the LHC at CERN, it has been common practice for many decades to estimate the theoretical uncertainty by studying the variations of the predicted cross sections with a priori unpredictable scales. In astroparticle physics, this has so far not been possible, since most of the observables were calculated at Born level only, so that the renormalization scheme and scale dependence could not be studied in a meaningful way. In this paper, we present the first quantitative study of the theoretical uncertainty of the neutralino dark matter relic density from scheme and scale variations. We first explain in detail how the renormalization scale enters the tree-level calculations through coupling constants, masses and mixing angles. We then demonstrate a reduction of the renormalization scale dependence through one-loop SUSY-QCD corrections in many different dark matter annihilation channels and enhanced perturbative stability of a mixed on-shell/$bar{rm DR}$ renormalization scheme over a pure $bar{rm DR}$ scheme in the top-quark sector. In the stop-stop annihilation channel, the Sommerfeld enhancement and its scale dependence are shown to be of particular importance. Finally, the impact of our higher-order SUSY-QCD corrections and their scale uncertainties are studied in three typical scenarios of the phenomenological Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model with eleven parameters (pMSSM-11). We find that the theoretical uncertainty is reduced in many cases and can become comparable to the size of the experimental one in some scenarios.
We consider the prospects for multiple dark matter direct detection experiments to determine if the interactions of a dark matter candidate are isospin-violating. We focus on theoretically well-motivated examples of isospin-violating dark matter (IVDM), including models in which dark matter interactions with nuclei are mediated by a dark photon, a Z, or a squark. We determine that the best prospects for distinguishing IVDM from the isospin-invariant scenario arise in the cases of dark photon- or Z-mediated interactions, and that the ideal experimental scenario would consist of large exposure xenon- and neon-based detectors. If such models just evade current direct detection limits, then one could distinguish such models from the standard isospin-invariant case with two detectors with of order 100 ton-year exposure.