We study the modification of the detected flavor content of ultra high-energy astrophysical neutrinos in the presence of non-standard interactions of neutrinos with the Earth matter. Unlike the case of new physics affecting the propagation from the source to the Earth, non-standard Earth matter effects induce a dependence of the flavor content on the arrival direction of the neutrino. We find that, within the current limits on non-standard neutrino interaction parameters, large deviations from the standard 3-nu oscillation predictions can be expected, in particular for fluxes dominated by one flavor at the source. Conversely they do not give sizable corrections to the expectation of equalized flavors in the Earth for sources dominated by production via pion-muon decay-chain.
One of the important goals for future neutrino telescopes is to identify the flavors of astrophysical neutrinos and therefore determine the flavor ratio. The flavor ratio of astrophysical neutrinos observed on the Earth depends on both the initial flavor ratio at the source and flavor transitions taking place during propagations of these neutrinos. We propose a model independent parametrization for describing the above flavor transitions. A few flavor transition models are employed to test our parametrization. The observational test for flavor transition mechanisms through our parametrization …
Observation of ultra-high energy astrophysical neutrinos and identification of their flavors have been proposed for future neutrino telescopes. The flavor ratio of astrophysical neutrinos observed on the Earth depends on both the initial flavor ratio at the source and flavor transitions taking place during propagations of these neutrinos. The flavor transition mechanisms are well-classified with our model-independent parametrization. We find a new parameter R=ϕ_e/(ϕ_μ + ϕ_τ) can probe directly the flavor transition in the framework of our model-independent parametrization, without the assumpti…
We revisit the flavor composition of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos observed at neutrino telescopes. Assuming unitary time evolution of the neutrino flavor states, the flavor composition observable at Earth is related to the initial composition at their sources via oscillation-averaged flavor transitions. In a previous study we derived general bounds on the flavor composition of TeV-PeV astrophysical neutrinos assuming three-flavor unitary mixing. We extend these bounds to the case of active-sterile neutrino mixing. Our bounds are analytical, derived based only on the unitarity of the mix…
The flavor composition of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos can reveal the physics governing their production, propagation, and interaction. The IceCube Collaboration has published the first experimental determination of the ratio of the flux in each flavor to the total. We present, as a theoretical counterpart, new results for the allowed ranges of flavor ratios at Earth for arbitrary flavor ratios in the sources. Our results will allow IceCube to more quickly identify when their data imply standard physics, a general class of new physics with arbitrary (incoherent) combinations of mass eig…
In a core collapse supernova, collective oscillations of neutrinos emitted by the proto-neutron star significantly modifies the partition of energy between different flavors in a way which is potentially important for the nucleosynthesis of heavy elements at the outer layers. As the outcome of collective oscillations depends nonlinearly on the chosen initial conditions proto-neutron star, their systematical study across the proto-neutron star model space may provide answers to some key questions.
The flavor composition of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos is a rich observable. However, present analyses cannot effectively distinguish particle showers induced by $ν_e$ versus $ν_τ$. We show that this can be accomplished by measuring the intensities of the delayed, collective light emission from muon decays and neutron captures, which are, on average, greater for $ν_τ$ than for $ν_e$. This new technique would significantly improve tests of the nature of astrophysical sources and of neutrino properties. We discuss the promising prospects for implementing it in IceCube and other detectors.
Motivated by the discovery of the first high-energy astrophysical neutrino source, the blazar TXS 0506+056, we revisit the IceCube flavor ratio analysis. Assuming large statistics from identified blazars, collected in the forthcoming years by the IceCube detector and its successor IceCube-Gen2, we demonstrate that the constraints on several new physics scenarios in which the baseline dependent terms in neutrino oscillation probabilities are not averaged, can be improved. As a representative case, we consider pseudo-Dirac neutrinos while neutrino decay is also discussed.
Astrophysical objects such as active-galactic nuclei (AGN) and gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) can be sources of high energy, astrophysical neutrinos. The decay of charged pions produces electron and muon-flavor neutrinos from the primary decay of the pion, and from the secondary decay of the resulting charged lepton. At low energies we expect the flavor ratio $Φ_{ν_e}:Φ_{ν_μ}:Φ_{ν_τ}$ to be $1:2:0$ at the source. We are interested in the flavor ratios as measured on Earth after the neutrinos propagate over cosmic distance scales from the source. If we only consider vacuum flavor transition probabilit…
Despite being a well understood phenomenon in the context of current terrestrial experiments, neutrino flavor conversions in dense astrophysical environments probably represent one of the most challenging open problems in neutrino physics. Apart from being theoretically interesting, such a problem has several phenomenological implications in cosmology and in astrophysics, including the primordial nucleosynthesis of light elements abundance and other cosmological observables, nucleosynthesis of heavy nuclei and the explosion of massive stars. In this review, we briefly summarize the state of th…
We have detected astrophysical neutrinos in IceCube that can be used to probe astrophysical sources at ultra high scales. Here we report a search for anomalous space time effects using astrophysical neutrino flavor data in IceCube. New effective operators are introduced to drive non-standard neutrino flavor mixing which modify the flavor ratios compared to standard cases. Using the High Energy Starting Events sample (HESE) 7.5-year data for this analysis, we found no evidence of such flavor anomalies. However, we are expecting to set limits from this new approach which goes far beyond any know…
The flavor composition of astrophysical neutrinos observed at neutrino telescopes is related to the initial composition at their sources via oscillation-averaged flavor transitions. If the time evolution of the neutrino flavor states is unitary, the probability of neutrinos changing flavor is solely determined by the unitary mixing matrix that relates the neutrino flavor and propagation eigenstates. In this paper we derive general bounds on the flavor composition of TeV-PeV astrophysical neutrinos based on unitarity constraints. These bounds are useful for studying the flavor composition of hi…
We discuss the reconstruction of neutrino flavor ratios at astrophysical sources through the future neutrino-telescope measurements. Taking the ranges of neutrino mixing parameters $θ_{ij}$ as those given by the current global fit, we demonstrate by a statistical method that the accuracies in the measurements of energy-independent ratios $R\equivϕ(ν_μ)/(ϕ(ν_{e})+ϕ(ν_τ))$ and $S\equivϕ(ν_e)/ϕ(ν_τ)$ among integrated neutrino flux should both be better than 10% in order to distinguish between the pion source and the muon-damped source at the $3 σ$ level. The 10% accuracy needed for measuring $R$ …
We critically examine the ability of future neutrino telescopes, including Baikal-GVD, KM3NeT, P-ONE, TAMBO, and IceCube-Gen2, to determine the flavor composition of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos, ie, the relative number of $ν_e$, $ν_μ$, and $ν_τ$, in light of improving measurements of the neutrino mixing parameters. Starting in 2020, we show how measurements by JUNO, DUNE, and Hyper-Kamiokande will affect our ability to determine the regions of flavor composition at Earth that are allowed by neutrino oscillations under different assumptions of the flavor composition that is emitted by t…
Astrophysical neutrinos are powerful tools to study fundamental properties of particle physics. We perform a general new physics study on ultra high energy neutrino flavor content by introducing effective operators. We find that at the current limits on these operators, new physics terms cause maximal effects on the flavor content, however, the flavor content at Earth is confined to a region related to the initial flavor content.
The high-energy astrophysical neutrinos recently discovered by IceCube opened a new way to test Lorentz and CPT violation through the astrophysical neutrino mixing properties. The flavor ratio of astrophysical neutrinos is a very powerful tool to investigate tiny effects caused by Lorentz and CPT violation. There are 3 main findings; (1) current limits on Lorentz and CPT violation in neutrino sector are not tight and they allow for any flavor ratios, (2) however, the observable flavor ratio on the Earth is tied with the flavor ratio at production, this means we can test both the presence of ne…
We study the evolution and oscillations of fixed massive neutrinos interacting with stochastic gravitational waves (GWs). The energy spectrum of these GWs is Gaussian, with the correlator of the amplitudes being arbitrary. We derive the equation for the density matrix for flavor neutrinos in this case. In the two flavors approximation, this equation can be solved analytically. We find the numerical solution for the density matrix in the general case of three neutrino flavors. We consider merging binary black holes as sources of stochastic GWs with realistic spectra. Both normal and inverted ma…
We study the propagation of neutrinos from compact astrophysical objects with strong magnetic field, such as magnetars. Both neutrino spin rotation and oscillations in a realistic three-flavor model are taken into account. We solve the neutrino evolution equation in the magnetic field near the object and obtain the probabilities of all possible spin-flavor transitions. Assuming that neutrinos are produced in the interior of the star being in their left-handed state with electron flavor, we use these spin-flavor transition probabilities to estimate the fraction of neutrinos, which change their …
We study Lorentz violation effects on flavor transitions of high energy astrophysical neutrinos. It is shown that the appearance of Lorentz violating Hamiltonian can drastically change the flavor transition probabilities of astrophysical neutrinos. Predictions of Lorentz violation effects on flavor compositions of astrophysical neutrinos arriving on Earth are compared with IceCube flavor composition measurement which analyzes astrophysical neutrino events in the energy range between $25~{\rm TeV}$ and $2.8~{\rm PeV}$. Such a comparison indicates that the future IceCube-Gen2 will be able to pla…
The recent IceCube observation of ultra-high-energy astrophysical neutrinos has begun the era of neutrino astronomy. In this work, using the unitarity of leptonic mixing matrix, we derive nontrivial unitarity constraints on the flavor composition of astrophysical neutrinos detected by IceCube. Applying leptonic unitarity triangles, we deduce these unitarity bounds from geometrical conditions, such as triangular inequalities. These new bounds generally hold for three flavor neutrinos, and are independent of any experimental input or the pattern of leptonic mixing. We apply our unitarity bounds …
Flavor ratios of very high energy astrophysical neutrinos, which can be studied at the Earth by a neutrino telescope such as IceCube, can serve to diagnose their production mechanism at the astrophysical source. The flavor ratios for neutrinos and antineutrinos can be quite different as we do not know how they are produced in the astrophysical environment. Due to this uncertainty the neutrino and antineutrino flavor ratios at the Earth also could be quite different. Nonetheless, it is generally assumed that flavor ratios for neutrinos and antineutrinos are the same at the Earth, in fitting the…
We argue that an effective flavor discrimination in neutrino telescopes is the key to probe the flavor ratios of astrophysical neutrinos at the source and flavor transition mechanisms of these neutrinos during their propagations from the source to the Earth. We first discuss how well one can reconstruct the flavor ratios of astrophysical neutrinos at the source. We then discuss how to probe flavor transition mechanisms of propagating astrophysical neutrinos. In this regard, we propose a model independent parametrization for neutrino flavor transitions, with the neutrino oscillation as a specia…
We discuss the importance of flavor ratio measurements in neutrino telescopes, such as by measuring the ratio between muon tracks to cascades, for the purpose of extracting new physics signals encountered by astrophysical neutrinos during propagation from the source to the detector. The detected flavor ratios not only carry the energy information of specific new physics scenarios which alter the transition probabilities in distinctive ways, but also the energy dependent flavor composition at the source. In the present work, we discuss the interplay of these two energy dependent effects and ide…
In this paper, we study the effect of active-neutrino-sterile-neutrino mixing in the expected high-energy astrophysical neutrino flavor content. Non-unitarity in the measurement of the three active neutrinos can be due to the existence of sterile neutrino states. We introduce the concept of the four-flavor tetrahedron in order to visualize the lack of unitarity in the astrophysical neutrino three-flavor triangle. We demonstrate that active-sterile neutrino mixings modify the allowed region of the astrophysical flavor ratio from the standard case. However, a projection of the four-flavor tetrah…
In this work we present an updated study of the flavor composition suggested by astrophysical neutrinos observed by IceCube. The main novelties compared to previous studies are the following: 1) we use the most recent measurements, namely 8 years of throughgoing muons and 7.5 years of High Energy Starting Events (HESE); 2) we consider a broken power law spectrum, in order to be consistent with the observations between 30 TeV and few PeV; 3) we use the throughgoing muon flux to predict the number of astrophysical HESE tracks. We show that accounting for the three previous elements, the result f…
Astrophysical neutrinos are powerful tools to investigate the fundamental properties of particle physics through their flavor content. In this paper, we perform the first general new physics study on ultra high energy neutrino flavor content by introducing effective operators. We find that at the current limits on these operators, new physics terms cause maximal effects on the flavor content, however, the flavor content at Earth is confined to a region related to the assumed initial flavor content. Furthermore, we conclude that a precise measure of the flavor content at Earth will provide orde…
We present the reconstruction of neutrino flavor ratios at astrophysical sources. For distinguishing the pion source and the muon-damped source to the 3$σ$ level, the neutrino flux ratios, $R\equivϕ(ν_μ)/(ϕ(ν_e)+ϕ(ν_τ))$ and $S\equivϕ(ν_e)/ϕ(ν_τ)$, need to be measured in accuracies better than 10%.
Astrophysical high-energy neutrinos observed by IceCube are sensitive to small effects in a vacuum such as those motivated from quantum gravity theories. Here, we discuss the potential sensitivity of Lorentz violation from the diffuse astrophysical neutrino data in IceCube. The estimated sensitivity reaches the Planck scale physics motivated region, providing IceCube with real discovery potential of Lorentz violation.
The flavor composition of astrophysical neutrinos observed in neutrino telescopes is a powerful discriminator between different astrophysical neutrino production mechanisms and can also teach us about the particle physics properties of neutrinos. In this paper, we investigate how the possible existence of light sterile neutrinos can affect these flavor ratios. We consider two scenarios: (i) neutrino production in conventional astrophysical sources, followed by partial oscillation into sterile states; (ii) neutrinos from dark matter decay with a primary flavor composition enhanced in tau neutri…
Astrophysical searches for new long-range interactions complement collider searches for new short-range interactions. Conveniently, neutrino flavor oscillations are keenly sensitive to the existence of long-ranged flavored interactions between neutrinos and electrons, motivated by lepton-number symmetries of the Standard Model. For the first time, we probe them using TeV-PeV astrophysical neutrinos and accounting for all large electron repositories in the local and distant Universe. The high energies and colossal number of electrons grant us unprecedented sensitivity to the new interaction, ev…
Can we observe the solar eclipses in the neutrino light? In principle, this is possible by identifying the lunar matter effects on the flavor conversions of solar neutrinos when they traverse the Moon before reaching the detectors at the Earth. Unfortunately, we show that the lunar matter effects on the survival probability of solar $^8{\rm B}$ neutrinos are suppressed by an additional factor of $1.2\%$, compared to the day-night asymmetry. However, we point out that the matter effects on the flavor conversions of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos, when they propagate through the Sun, can be…
We fit the energy distribution of the IceCube starting events by a model which involves four parameters in the neutrino spectrum, namely three normalizations $n_e,n_μ,n_τ$ and a common power-law index $γ$, with a fixed background simulated by IceCube. It is found that the best fit index is $γ= 2.7$ with $χ^2_{\rm min} = 32.3/24\,{\rm dof}$. As for the two parameter model involving a democratic normalization and an index, the best fit is at $γ= 2.8$ with $χ^2_{\rm min} = 33.9/26\,{\rm dof}$. The flavored model and the democratic model do not have much difference in the quality of the (energy-sp…
Analytic formulas are presented for three flavor neutrino oscillations in matter in the plane wave approximation. We calculate in particular the time evolution operator in both mass and flavor bases. We also find the transition probabilities expressed as functions of the vacuum mass squared differences, the vacuum mixing angles, and the matter density parameter. The application of this to neutrino oscillations for both atmospheric and long baseline neutrinos in a mantle-core-mantle step function model of the Earth's matter density profile is discussed.
We discuss the prospects for next generation neutrino telescopes, such as IceCube, to measure the flavor ratios of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos. The expected flavor ratios at the sources are $ϕ_{ν_e}:ϕ_{ν_μ}:ϕ_{ν_τ} = 1:2:0$, and neutrino oscillations quickly transform these to $1:1:1$. The flavor ratios can be deduced from the relative rates of showers ($ν_e$ charged-current, most $ν_τ$ charged-current, and all flavors neutral-current), muon tracks ($ν_μ$ charged-current only), and tau lepton lollipops and double-bangs ($ν_τ$ charged-current only). The peak sensitivities for these inte…
Neutrino Flavor Evolution in High Flux Astrophysical Environments
Los Alamos National Laboratory（洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室）；University of Trento（特伦托大学）；INFN-TIFPA Trento Institute of Fundamental Physics and Applications（INFN-TIFPA 特伦托基础物理与应用研究所）
It is shown how high energy neutrino beams from very distant sources can be utilized to learn about many properties of neutrinos such as lifetimes, mass hierarchy, mixing, minuscule pseudo-Dirac mass splittings; in addition, the production mechanism of neutrinos in astrophysical sources can also be elucidated.
The number of events observed in neutrino telescopes depends on the neutrino fluxes in the Earth, their absorption while crossing the Earth and their interaction in the detector. In this paper, we investigate the impact of the QCD dynamics at high energies on the energy dependence of the average inelasticity and angular dependence of the absorption probability during the neutrino propagation through the Earth, as well in the determination of the properties of the incident astrophysical neutrino flux. Moreover, the number of events at the IceCube and IceCube - Gen2 are estimated considering dif…
We systematically study the allowed parameter space for the flavor composition of astrophysical neutrinos measured at Earth, including beyond the Standard Model theories at production, during propagation, and at detection. One motivation is to illustrate the discrimination power of the next-generation neutrino telescopes such as IceCube-Gen2. We identify several examples that lead to potential deviations from the standard neutrino mixing expectation such as significant sterile neutrino production at the source, effective operators modifying the neutrino propagation at high energies, dark matte…
Measuring neutrino mixing above 1 TeV with astrophysical neutrinos
Niels Bohr International Academy, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen（哥本哈根大学尼尔斯·玻尔国际学院、尼尔斯·玻尔研究所）；Queen’s University（女王大学）；Arthur B. McDonald Canadian Astroparticle Physics Research Institute（阿瑟·B·麦克唐纳加拿大高能天体物理研究所）；Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics（理论物理前沿研究所）；Simon Fraser University（西蒙菲莎大学）；Universitat de València-CSIC（瓦伦西亚大学-西班牙国家科学研究委员会）
Electromagnetic (and adiabatic) energy losses of pions and muons modify the flavor ratio (measured at Earth) of neutrinos produced by pion decay in astrophysical sources, $Φ_{ν_e}:Φ_{ν_μ}:Φ_{ν_τ}$, from 1:1:1 at low energy to 1:1.8:1.8 at high energy. The transition occurs over 1-2 decades of nuetrino energy, and is correlated with a modification of the neutrino spectrum. For gamma-ray bursts, e.g., the transition is expected at \~100 TeV, and may be detected by km-scale neutrino telescopes. Measurements of the transition energy and energy-width will provide unique probes of the physics of the…
In the early Universe, as well as in supernovae and merging neutron stars, neutrinos have such high densities that they affect each other and exhibit collective flavor oscillations. A crucial ingredient for fast collective flavor oscillations is that the electron lepton number (ELN) distribution changes its sign as a function of direction, i.e., has a zero crossing. We present a study in two dimensions and show how fast flavor oscillations depend on the ELN and its crossings. We show that a large number of crossings can inhibit flavor oscillations. This may be a natural self-limiting mechanism…
The high energy neutrinos produced in a choked GRB can undergo matter oscillation before emerging out of the stellar envelope. Before reaching the detector on Earth, these neutrinos can undergo further vacuum oscillation and then Earth matter oscillation. In the context of IceCube we study the Earth matter effect on neutrino flux in the detector. For the calculation of track-to-shower ratio R in the IceCube, we have included the shadowing effect and the additional contribution from the muon track produced by the high energy tau lepton decay in the vicinity of the detector. We observed that R i…
We discuss flavor-mixing probabilities and flavor ratios of high energy astrophysical neutrinos. In the first part of this paper, we expand the neutrino flavor-fluxes in terms of the small parameters U_{e3} and pi/4 - theta_{23}, and show that there are universal first and second order corrections. The second order term can exceed the first order term, and so should be included in any analytic study. We also investigate the probabilities and ratios after a further expansion around the tribimaximal value of sin^2 theta_{12} = 1/3. In the second part of the paper, we discuss implications of devi…
A surprising consequence of non-linear flavor evolution is the spontaneous breaking of the initial symmetries of the neutrino gas propagating in a dense astrophysical environment. We explore the flavor conversion physics by taking into account the polar and azimuthal angular distributions of neutrinos and present the very first example of spontaneous symmetry breaking in the context of fast flavor mixing in the nonlinear regime. Intriguingly, we find that fast flavor mixing does not always develop in the proximity of the angular regions with vanishing electron lepton number, as commonly assume…
We explore the possibility that high energy astrophysical neutrinos can interact with the dark matter on their way to Earth. Keeping in mind that new physics might leave its signature at such energies, we have considered all possible topologies for effective interactions between neutrino and dark matter. Building models, that give rise to a significant flux suppression of astrophysical neutrinos at Earth, is rather difficult. We present a $Z^{\prime}$-mediated model in this context. Encompassing a large variety of models, a wide range of dark matter masses from $10^{-21}$ eV up to a TeV, this …
Parameter degeneracy and information loss in inverse flavor mapping for high-energy astrophysical neutrinos
School of Fundamental Physics and Mathematical Sciences, Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, UCAS（杭州高等研究院基础物理与数学学院）；Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院理论物理研究所）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院高能物理研究所）；Center of High Energy Physics, Peking University（北京大学高能物理中心）
The pp interactions taking place in the cosmos around us are a source of the astrophysical neutrinos of all the three flavors. In these interactions, the electron and the muon neutrinos mainly come from the production and the decay of the π^{\pm} mesons, whereas the tau neutrinos mainly come from the production and the decay of the D^{\pm}_{S} mesons. We estimate the three intrinsic neutrino flavor ratios for 1 GeV < E < 10^{12} GeV in the pp interactions and found them to be 1 : 2 : 3\times 10^{-5}. We study the effects of neutrino oscillations on these intrinsic ratios. We point out that the…
Earth absorbs $\nue$ and $\numu$ of energies above about 100 TeV. As is well-known, although $\nutau$ will also disappear through charged-current interactions, the $\nutau$ flux will be regenerated by prompt tau decays. We show that this process also produces relatively large fluxes of secondary $\nube$ and $\nubmu$, greatly enhancing the detectability of the initial $\nutau$. This is particularly important because at these energies $\nutau$ is a significant fraction of the expected astrophysical neutrino flux, and only a tiny portion of the atmospheric neutrino flux.
We investigate new physics effects in the production and detection of high energy neutrinos at neutrino telescopes. Analysing the flavor ratios ϕ_μ/ϕ_τand ϕ_μ/(ϕ_τ+ϕ_e), we find that the Standard Model predictions for them can be sensibly altered by new physics effects.
We evaluate the three bulk viscosity coefficients $ζ_1, ζ_2$ and $ζ_3$ in the color-flavor locked (CFL) superfluid phase due to phonons and kaons, which are the lightest modes in that system. We first show that the computation is rather analogous to the computation of the same coefficients in superfluid $^4$He, as due to phonons and rotons. For astrophysical applications, we also find the value of the viscosities when there is a periodic disturbance, and the viscosities also depend on the frequency of the disturbance. In a temperature regime that might be of astrophysical relevance, we find th…
