Oscillatory behavior of electron capture rates in the two-body decay of hydrogen-like ions into recoil ions plus undetected neutrinos, with a period of approximately 7 s, was reported in storage ring single-ion experiments at the GSI Laboratory, Darmstadt. Ivanov and Kienle [PRL 103, 062502 (2009)] have relegated this period to neutrino masses through neutrino mixing in the final state. New arguments are given here against this interpretation, while suggesting that these `GSI Oscillations' may be related to neutrino spin precession in the static magnetic field of the storage ring. This scenario requires a Dirac neutrino magnetic moment six times smaller than the Borexino solar neutrino upper limit 0.54 x 10E(-10) of the Bohr magneton [PRL 101, 091302 (2008)], and its consequences are explored.
It is shown that neutrino mixing cannot explain the GSI time anomaly, refuting recent claims in this direction. Addendum 1: Remarks on arXiv:0801.1465. Addendum 2: Quantum effects in GSI nuclear decay.
This paper is addressed to the proof of the important role of measuring apparatus, i.e. the measuring process, in the formation of necessary and sufficient conditions for the explanation of a time modulation of K-shell electron capture (EC) decay rates of hydrogen-like (H-like) heavy ions (or the GSI oscillations) as the interference of neutrino mass-eigenstates of the electron neutrino constituents. For our analysis we use a toy-model, which has been recently proposed by Peshkin arXiv: 1403.4292 [nucl-th] for a verification of the mechanism of the GSI oscillations as the interference of neutr…
I conjecture that the time modulated decay rates reported in single ion measurements of two body electron capture decay of hydrogen like heavy ions at GSI may be related to neutrino spin precession in the static magnetic field of the storage ring. These `GSI Oscillations' arise from interference between amplitudes of decay within and without the magnetic field, a scenario that requires a Dirac neutrino magnetic moment six times lower than the Borexino solar neutrino upper limit of 0.54 x 10E(-10) Bohr magneton. I also show in a way not discussed before that the time modulation associated with …
We investigate the influence of the strong Coulomb field of a heavy nucleus on massive neutrinos, produced in the K-shell electron capture (EC) decays of the H-like 140Pr58+ and 142Pm60+ ions. The corrections to the neutrino masses due to virtually produced charged lepton W-boson pairs in the strong Coulomb field of a nucleus with charge Ze are calculated and discussed with respect to their influence on the period of the time-modulation of the number of daughter ions, observed recently in the EC-decays of the H-like 140Pr58+ and 142Pm60+ ions at GSI in Darmstadt. These corrections explain the …
Recently, an experiment at GSI Darmstadt has observed oscillating decay rates of heavy ions. Several controversial attempts have been made to explain this effect in terms of neutrino mixing. We briefly describe the experimental results, give an overview of the literature, and show that the effect cannot be due to neutrino mixing. If the effect survives, it could, however, be explained by hypothetical internal excitations of the mother ions (~ 10^(-15) eV).
Here we reply critically to the comments by Giunti (arXiv:0801.4639 [nucl-th]) and justify our explanation of the experimentally observed periodic interference term in the rate of the K-shell electron capture decay of the H-like ions 140Pr58+ and 142Pm60+ as a neutrino-flavour mixing.
We analyse recent experimental data on the GSI oscillations of the hydrogen-like heavy {^{142}}{\rm Pm}^{60+} ions that is a time modulation of the K-shell electron capture (EC) decay rate. We follow the mechanism of the GSI oscillations, caused by an interference of the neutrino flavour mass-eigenstates in a content of the electron neutrino. We give arguments that these experimental data show i) an existence of sterile neutrinos that is necessary for an explanation of a phase-shift, ii) an observation of CP violation, related to a phase-shift, and iii) an influence of the Quantum Zeno Effect,…
Neutrino signals in electron-capture decays of hydrogen-like parent ions P in storage-ring experiments at GSI are reconsidered, with special emphasis placed on the storage-ring quasi-circular motion of the daughter ions D in two-body decays P --> D + e-neutrino. It is argued that to the extent that daughter ions are detected, these detection rates might exhibit modulations with periods of order seconds, similar to those reported in the GSI storage-ring experiments for two-body decay rates [1,2]. New dedicated experiments in storage rings, or using traps, could explore these modulations.
According to GSI experiment Phys.Lett.B 664, 162 (2008), the rate of the daughter ion production by the K-shell electron capture (with neutrino emission) in H-like ions 142Pm, 140Pr and 152I is modulated with a period of 6 to 7 seconds. In PRL 103, 062502, 2009 by Ivanov and Kienle (also by Lipkin}) there is a claim that neutrino oscillations may explain this result. In arXiv:0811.2302 by Lambiase et al a different explanation is suggested which is based on the rotation of electron and nuclear spins. The aim of this Comment is to show why these explanations are not satisfactory and to discuss …
We give comments on the recent paper by Giunti (Phys. Lett. B 665, 92 (2008), arXiv: 0805.0431 [hep-ph]) with a critique of our explanation of the experimentally observed periodic time-dependence of the interference term in the rate of the K-shell electron capture decay of the H-like ions 140Pr58+ and 142Pm60+ as a two-neutrino-flavour mixing. We show also that this phenomenon cannot be explained by a coherent mixing of two states of a mother ion as proposed by Giunti.
According to experimental data at GSI, the rates of the number of daughter ions, produced by the nuclear K-shell electron capture (EC) decays of the H-like heavy ions with one electron in the K-shell, such as 142Pr58+, 142Pm60+ and 122I52+, are modulated in time with periods T_(EC)of the order of a few seconds, obeying an A-scaling T_(EC)= A/20 s, where A is the mass number of the mother nuclei, and with amplitudes a^(EC)_d ~ 0.21. We show that these data can be explained in terms of the interference of two massive neutrino mass-eigenstates. The appearance of the interference term is due to ov…
According to experimental data at GSI, the rates of the number of daughter ions, produced by the nuclear K-shell electron capture (EC) decays of the H-like 140Pr58+, 142Pm60+ and 122I52+ ions, are modulated in time with periods T_{EC} of the order of a few seconds, obeying an A-scaling T_{EC} = A/20 s, where A is the mass number of the mother nuclei, and with amplitudes a^{EC}_d ~ 0.21. In turn, the positron decay mode of the H-like 142Pm60+ ions showed no time modulation of the decay rates. As has been shown in Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 062502 (2009) and Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 182501 (2008), these…
According to recent experimental data at GSI, the rate of the number of daughter ions 140Ce58+, produced by the nuclear K-shell electron capture (EC) decay of the H-like ion 140Pr58+, is modulated in time with a period T_d = 7.06(8) sec and an amplitude a_(EC) = 0.20(2). We show that this phenomenon can be explained by neutrino-flavour mixing and derive a value for the difference of squared masses Delta m^2_(21) = m^2_2 - m^2_1 = 2.22(3)x10^(-4) eV^2.
We calculate the neutrino masses, using the experimental data on the periods of the time modulation of the K-shell electron capture (EC) decay rates of the H-like heavy ions, measured at GSI. The corrections to neutrino masses, caused by interaction of massive neutrinos with the strong Coulomb field of the daughter ions, are taken into account.
Quantum mechanical theory disallows the model that has been used to infer the neutrino mass difference from the reported "GSI oscillations" in the rates of decay of hydrogen-like ions by electron capture. It has not been proved that the existence of mass-difference-dependent oscillations conflicts with quantum mechanics but no consistent quantum mechanical model has been shown to predict them.
The 7Be(p,gamma)8B reaction is one of the major source of uncertainties in estimating the 8B solar neutrino flux and is critical for undertsanding the Solar Neutrino Problem and neutrinos. The main source of uncertainty is the existence of conflicting data with different absolute normalization. Attempts to measure this reaction rate with 7Be beams are under way by the UConn-LLN collaboration, and we discuss a newly emerging method to extract this cross section from the Coulomb dissociation of the radioactive beam of 8B. We discuss some of the issues relevant for this study including the questi…
We show that the radiative corrections to charged current (CC) nuclear reactions with an electron(positron) in the final state are described by a universal function. The consistency of our treatment of the radiative corrections with the procedure used to extract the value of the axial coupling constant $g_A$ is discussed. To illustrate we apply our results to (anti)neutrino deuterium disintegration and to $pp$ fusion in the sun. The limit of vanishing electron mass is considered, and a simple formula valid for $E_{obs}\gsim 1$ MeV is obtained. The size of the nuclear structure-dependent effect…
We discuss how to reduce theoretical uncertainties in the neutrino-deuteron breakup cross-sections crucial to the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory's efforts to measure the solar neutrino flux. In effective field theory, the dominant uncertainties in all neutrino-deuteron reactions can be expressed through a single, common, isovector axial two-body current parameterized by $L_{1,A}$. After briefly reviewing the status of fixing $L_{1,A}$ experimentally, we present a constraint on $L_{1,A}$ imposed by existing reactor antineutrino-deuteron breakup data. This constraint alone leads to an uncertainty …
We show that chiral effective field theory (EFT) two-body currents provide important contributions to the quenching of low-momentum-transfer Gamow-Teller transitions, and use chiral EFT to predict the momentum-transfer dependence that is probed in neutrinoless double-beta decay. We then calculate for the first time the neutrinoless double-beta decay operator based on chiral EFT currents and study the nuclear matrix elements at successive orders. The contributions from chiral two-body currents are significant and should be included in all calculations.
According to the recent experimental data of a GSI--experiment, the rate of the number of daughter ions $^{140}{\rm Ce}^{58+}$, produced by a nuclear K--shell electron capture (EC) of the H--like ion ${^{140}}{\rm Pr}^{58+}$, is modulated in time with a period $T_d=(7.06\pm 8) $seconds. We explain this phenomenon by neutrino--flavour mixing and show that this can be understood within standard quantum field theory and derive a value for the squared mass difference $Δm^2_{21}=m^2_2-m^2_1=(0.763\pm 8) \cdot 10^{-4} \mathrm{eV}^2$. This proves that such processes provide a precise method to invest…
We investigate the composition and the equation of state of the kaon condensed phase in neutrino-free and neutrino-trapped star matter within the framework of the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approach with three-body forces. We find that neutrino trapping shifts the onset density of kaon condensation to a larger baryon density, and reduces considerably the kaon abundance. As a consequence, when kaons are allowed, the equation of state of neutrino-trapped star matter becomes stiffer than the one of neutrino free matter. The effects of different three-body forces are compared and discussed. Neutrino t…
An algebraic approach to the neutrino propagation in dense media is presented. The Hamiltonian describing a gas of neutrinos interacting with each other and with background fermions is written in terms of the appropriate SU(N) operators, where N is the number of neutrino flavors. The evolution of the resulting many-body problem is formulated as a coherent-state path integral. Some commonly used approximations are shown to represent the saddle-point solution of the path integral for the full many-body system.
We briefly review recent calculations of neutrino deuteron cross sections within the effective field theory and traditional potential model approaches. We summarize recent efforts to determine the counter term describing axial two-body currents, L_{1A}, in the effective field theory approach. We determine the counter term directly from the solar neutrino data and find several, slightly different, ranges of L_{1A} under different sets of assumptions. Our most conservative fit value with the largest uncertainty is L_{1A} = 4.5 +18/-12 fm^3. We show that the contribution of the uncertainty of L_{…
Coulomb breakup strengths of 11Li into a three-body 9Li+n+n system are studied in the complex scaling method. We decompose the transition strengths into the contributions from three-body resonances, two-body ``10Li+n'' and three-body ``9Li+n+n'' continuum states. In the calculated results, we cannot find the dipole resonances with a sharp decay width in 11Li. There is a low energy enhancement in the breakup strength, which is produced by both the two- and three-body continuum states. The enhancement given by the three-body continuum states is found to have a strong connection to the halo struc…
Dense neutrino gases form in extreme astrophysical sites, and the flavor content of the neutrinos likely has an important impact on the subsequent dynamical evolution of their environment. Through coherent forward scattering among neutrinos, the flavor content of the gas evolves under a time-dependent potential which can be modeled in a quantum many-body formalism as an all-to-all coupled spin-spin interaction. This two-body potential generically introduces entanglement and greatly complicates the study of these systems. In this work we study the evolution of the quantum many-body problem as w…
I study the flavor evolution of a dense neutrino gas by considering vacuum contributions, matter effects and neutrino self-interactions. Assuming a system of two flavors in a uniform matter background, the time evolution of the many-body system in discretized momentum space is computed. The multi-angle neutrino-neutrino interactions are treated exactly and compared to both the single-angle approximation and mean field calculations. %The time unit chosen is $μ_0^{-1}=(\frac{G_F}{2\sqrt{2}V})^{-1}$. The mono-energetic two neutrino beam scenario is solved analytically. I proceed to solve flavor o…
We analyze the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) and Super-Kamiokande (SK) data on charged current (CC), neutral current (NC) and neutrino electron elastic scattering (ES) reactions to constrain the leading weak axial two-body current parameterized by L_1A. This two-body current is the dominant uncertainty of every low energy weak interaction deuteron breakup process, including SNO's CC and NC reactions. Our method shows that the theoretical inputs to SNO's determination of the CC and NC fluxes can be self-calibrated, be calibrated by SK, or be calibrated by reactor data. The only assumption …
The charged-current quasi-elastic (CCQE) scattering of muon neutrinos on a carbon target is analyzed using the relativistic distorted-wave impulse approximation (RDWIA) taking into account the contribution of the two-particle and two-hole meson exchange current ($2p-2h$ MEC) to the weak response functions. A fit the RDWIA+MEC model to the MiniBooNE neutrino data is performed and the best fit value of nucleon axial mass $M_A=1.2 \pm 0.06$ GeV is obtained. We also extract the values of the axial form factor $F_A(Q^2)$ as a function of the squared momentum transfer $Q^2$ from the measured $dσ/dQ^…
We test the effects of an approximate treatment of two-body contributions to the axial-vector current on the QRPA matrix elements for neutrinoless double-beta decay in a range of isotopes. The form and strength of the two-body terms come from chiral effective-field theory. The two-body currents typically reduce the matrix elements by about 20%, not as much as in shell-model calculations. One reason for the difference is that standard practice in the QRPA is to adjust the strength of the isoscalar pairing interaction to reproduce two-neutrino double-beta decay lifetimes. Another may be the larg…
Collective neutrino oscillations play a crucial role in transporting lepton flavor in astrophysical settings, such as supernovae, where the neutrino density is large. In this regime, neutrino-neutrino interactions are important and simulations in the mean-field approximation show evidence for collective oscillations occurring at time scales much larger than those associated with vacuum oscillations. In this work, we study the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of a corresponding spin model using Matrix Product States and show how collective bipolar oscillations can be triggered by many-body correlati…
Background: Neutrino-nucleus quasi-elastic scattering is crucial to interpret the neutrino oscillation results in long baseline neutrino experiments. There are rather large uncertainties in the cross section, due to insufficient knowledge on the role of two-body weak currents. Purpose: Determine the role of two-body weak currents in neutrino-deuteron quasi-elastic scattering up to GeV energies. Methods: Calculate cross sections for inclusive neutrino scattering off deuteron induced by neutral and charge-changing weak currents, from threshold up to GeV energies, using the Argonne $v_{18}$ poten…
We consider the counter-term describing isoscalar axial two-body currents in the nucleon-nucleon interaction, L1A, in the effective field theory approach. We determine this quantity using the solar neutrino data. We investigate the variation of L1A when different sets of data are used.
The three-body force (TBF) effect on the neutrino emissivity in neutron star matter and the total neutrino emissivity of neutron stars have been investigated within the framework of the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approach by adopting the AV18 two-body interaction plus a microscopic TBF. The neutrino emissivity from the direct Urca process turns out to be much larger than that from the modified Urca process. Inclusion of the TBF reduces strongly the density thresholds of the direct Urca processes involving electrons and muons. The TBF effect on the total neutrino emissivity of neutron stars is show…
We consider the flavor evolution of a dense neutrino gas by taking into account both vacuum oscillations and self interactions of neutrinos. We examine the system from a many-body perspective as well as from the point of view of an effective one-body description formulated in terms of the neutrino polarization vectors. We show that, in the single angle approximation, both the many-body picture and the effective one-particle picture possess several constants of motion. We write down these constants of motion explicitly in terms of the neutrino isospin operators for the many-body case and in ter…
The inelastic neutral reaction of neutrino on 4He is calculated using two modern nucleon--nucleon potentials. Full final state interaction among the four nucleons is considered, via the Lorentz integral transform (LIT) method. The effective interaction hyperspherical-harmonic (EIHH) approach is used to solve the resulting Schrodinger like equations. A detailed energy dependent calculation is given in the impulse approximation.
We consider the many-body system of neutrinos interacting with each other through neutral current weak force. Emerging many-body effects in such a system could play important roles in some astrophysical sites such as the core collapse supernovae. In the literature this many-body system is usually treated within the mean field approximation which is an effective one-body description based on omitting entangled neutrino states. In this paper, we consider the original many-body system in an effective two flavor mixing scenario under the single angle approximation and present a solution without us…
The extraordinary neutrino flux produced in extreme astrophysical environments like the early universe, core-collapse supernovae and neutron star mergers may produce coherent quantum neutrino oscillations on macroscopic length scales. The Hamiltonian describing this evolution can be mapped into quantum spin models with all-to-all couplings arising from neutrino-neutrino forward scattering. To date many studies of these oscillations have been performed in a mean-field limit where the neutrinos time evolve in a product state. In this paper we examine a simple two-beam model evolving from an init…
We investigate the importance of going beyond the mean-field approximation in the dynamics of collective neutrino oscillations. To expand our understanding of the coherent neutrino oscillation problem, we apply concepts from many-body physics and quantum information theory. Specifically, we use measures of nontrivial correlations (otherwise known as "entanglement") between the constituent neutrinos of the many-body system, such as the entanglement entropy and the Bloch vector of the reduced density matrix. The relevance of going beyond the mean field is demonstrated by comparisons between the …
Exact analytic solutions are obtained in three-body problem for the scattering of light particle on two fixed centers in the case when pair potentials have a separable form. Solutions show an appearance of new three-body resonance states that depend on distance between two fixed centers. In the case when two-body neutron-nucleus amplitudes have the Breit-Wigner's form and heavy nuclei fixed in nodes of crystalline lattice widths of new resonance states can be equal to zero at certain values of the distance. It gives the possibility of transitions between three-body resonance states connected w…
A Regge-inspired model is used to discuss the hard exclusive two-body hadronic reactions (pbar p ----> pi+ pi-, pi0 pi0, K+ K-, Kbar0 K0) for the FAIR facility project at GSI with the Panda detector. The comparison between the differential cross sections predictions and the available data is shown to determine the values of the few parameters of the model.
We demonstrate a method to systematically obtain eigenvalues and eigenstates of a many-body Hamiltonian describing collective neutrino oscillations. The method is derived from the Richardson-Gaudin framework, which involves casting the eigenproblem as a set of coupled nonlinear "Bethe Ansatz equations", the solutions of which can then be used to parametrize the eigenvalues and eigenvectors. The specific approach outlined in this paper consists of defining auxiliary variables that are related to the Bethe-Ansatz parameters, thereby transforming the Bethe-Ansatz equations into a different set of…
We investigate cross sections for neutrino-12C exclusive scattering and for muon capture on 12C using wave functions obtained in the ab initio no-core shell model. In our parameter-free calculations with basis spaces up to the 6 hbarOmega we show that realistic nucleon-nucleon interactions, like e.g. the CD-Bonn, under predict the experimental cross sections by more than a factor of two. By including a realistic three-body interaction, Tucson-Melbourne TM'(99), the cross sections are enhanced significantly and a much better agreement with experiment is achieved. At the same time,the TM'(99) in…
We study the neutrino emissivity of strongly magnetized neutron stars due to the charged and neutral current couplings of neutrinos to baryons in strong magnetic fields. The leading order neutral current process is the one-body neutrino-pair bremsstrahlung, which does not have an analogue in the zero field limit. The leading order charged current reaction is the known generalization of the direct Urca processes to strong magnetic fields. While for superstrong magnetic fields in excess of $10^{18}$ G the direct Urca process dominates the one-body bremsstrahlung, we find that for fields on the o…
In a core-collapse supernova, a huge amount of energy is released in the Kelvin-Helmholtz phase subsequent to the explosion, when the proto-neutron star cools and deleptonizes as it loses neutrinos. Most of this energy is emitted through neutrinos, but a fraction of it can be released through gravitational waves. We model the evolution of a proto-neutron star in the Kelvin-Helmholtz phase using a general relativistic numerical code, and a recently proposed finite temperature, many-body equation of state; from this we consistently compute the diffusion coefficients driving the evolution. To inc…
Two of the key issues in understanding the neutron-to-proton ratio in a core-collapse supernova are discussed. One of these is the behavior of the neutrino-nucleon cross sections as supernova energies. The other issue is the many-body properties of the neutrino gas near the core when both one- and two-body interaction terms are included.
If a system of flavor-oscillating neutrinos is at high enough densities that neutrino-neutrino coherent forward scatterings are non-negligible, the system becomes a time-dependent many-body problem. An important and open question is whether the flavor evolution is sufficiently described by a mean-field approach or can be strongly affected by correlations arising from two-body interactions in the neutrino Hamiltonian, as measured by nontrivial quantum entanglement. Numerical computations of the time evolution of many-body quantum systems are challenging because the size of the Hilbert space sca…
We use Lee-Suzuki mappings and related techniques to construct effective two-body p-shell interactions and neutrinoless double-beta operators that exactly reproduce the results of large no-core-shell-model calculations of double-beta decay in nuclei with mass number A=6. We then apply the effective operators to the decay of nuclei with A=7, 8, and 10, again comparing with no-core calculations in much larger spaces. The results with the effective two-body operators are generally good. In some cases, however, they differ non-negligibly from the full no-core results, suggesting that three-body co…
We calculate the effective masses of neutrons and protons in dense nuclear matter within the microscopic Brueckner-Hartree-Fock many-body theory and study the impact on the neutrino emissivity processes of neutron stars. We compare results based on different nucleon-nucleon potentials and nuclear three-body forces. Useful parametrizations of the numerical results are given. We find substantial in-medium suppression of the emissivities, strongly dependent on the interactions.
