A spatially uniform vector condensate can be formed during inflation if the vector boson is coupled to the inflaton through nontrivial kinetic function. The coherent oscillation of such a massive vector boson is a dark matter candidate. In this paper we consider the case where the vector boson energy density increases during inflation and show that the curvature/isocurvature perturbation gives stringent constraint on this scenario.
We construct a model of hidden massive vector boson dark matter as a homogeneous coherent oscillation in the entire universe without any dangerous instability. We make use of a particular form of the vector boson coupling to a scalar field through the gauge kinetic function. This scenario may be distinguished from other dark matter models through the observation of statistical anisotropy in the dark matter isocurvature perturbation.
We investigate how coherent oscillations backreact on the evolution of the condensate wave function of ultra-light axions in the non-relativistic regime appropriate to cosmic structure formation. The coherent oscillations induce higher harmonics beyond the fundamental mode considered so far when a self-interaction is present, and imprint oscillations in the gravitational potential. We emphasize that the effective self-interaction felt by the slowly-varying envelop of the wave function always differs from the bare Lagrangian interaction potential. We also point out that, in the hydrodynamical f…
We investigate baryogenesis in the $ν$MSM (neutrino Minimal Standard Model), which is the MSM extended by three right-handed neutrinos with masses below the electroweak scale. The baryon asymmetry of the universe can be generated by the mechanism via flavor oscillation of right-handed (sterile) neutrinos which are responsible to masses of active neutrinos confirmed by various experiments. We present the kinetic equations for the matrix of densities of leptons which describe the generation of asymmetries. Especially, the momentum dependence of the matrix of densities is taken into account. By s…
We present analytical solutions to the nonlinear equations describing the behavior of a gas of neutrinos with two flavors. Self-maintained coherent flavor oscillations are shown to occur when the gas density exceeds a critical value determined by the neutrino masses and the mean neutrino energy in the gas. Similar oscillations may have occurred in the early Universe.
We analyze the evolution of the perturbations in the inflaton field and metric following the end of inflation. We present accurate analytic approximations for the perturbations, showing that the coherent oscillations of the post-inflationary condensate necessarily break down long before any current phenomenological constraints require the universe to become radiation dominated. Further, the breakdown occurs on length-scales equivalent to the comoving post-inflationary horizon size. This work has implications for both the inflationary "matching" problem, and the possible generation of a stochas…
It is often the case that scalar fields are produced in the early Universe in the form of coherent oscillation. These scalar fields may have huge abundances and affect the evolution of the Universe. In particular, if the lifetime is long enough, they may cause cosmological disasters. We revisit the issue of coherent oscillation of the scalar field when it couples with another oscillating scalar field, and find a situation that the abundance, or the amplitude of the oscillation, is significantly reduced by a variant type of the adiabatic suppression mechanism. As a concrete example, it is appli…
We investigate particle production from coherent oscillation by using the method based on the Bogolyubov transformation. Especially, we study the case when the amplitude of the oscillation and also the coupling constants with the oscillating field are small in order to avoid the non-perturbative corrections from the broad parametric resonance. We derive the expressions for the distribution functions and the number densities of produced particles at the leading order of coupling constant. It is, however, found that these results fail to describe the exact particle production eventually due to t…
Precision measurements of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon depend on the correct collective mode assignment of the coherent betatron oscillations in the beam. Presently, there is a disagreement between experiment and theory for the horizontal betatron frequency. The discrepancy is here resolved by our computations of electrostatic beam focusing. The correct treatment of the betatron effects renders less likely the need for non-standard model corrections to the muon g-2.
Extensions beyond the Standard Model allow for a gauge singlet scalar to be kinetically coupled with the Higgs. We consider kinetic mixing between a Dark scalar gauge singlet \emph{nearly degenerate} with the Higgs, focusing on the \emph{dynamical} aspects of the mixing phenomena. The renormalization program is carried out by obtaining the one-loop effective action which yields an effective non-hermitian Hamiltonian to study the dynamics of mixing. The scalar Higgs becomes a coherent superposition of the mass eigenstates, thus kinetic mixing leads to oscillations and common decay channels in s…
Simultaneous treatment of neutrino oscillations and collisions in astrophysical environments requires the use of (quantum) kinetic equations. Despite major advances in the field of quantum kinetics, the structure of the kinetic equations and their consistency with the uncertainty principle are still debated. The goals of the present work are threefold. First, it clarifies the structure of the Liouville term in the presence of mixing. Second, we derive evolution equation for neutrinos propagating in vacuum or matter from the Schrodinger equation and show that in the relativistic limit its form …
We discuss the possibility of searching for the $\Lam - \Lamb$ oscillations for coherent $\Lam\Lamb$ production in the J/$ψ\to \Lam \Lamb$ decay process. The sensitivity of measurement of $\Lam -\Lamb$ oscillation in the external field at BES-III experiment is considered. These considerations indicate an alternative way to probe the $ΔB =2$ amplitude in addition to neutron oscillation experiments. Both coherent and time-dependent information can be used to extract the $\Lam-\Lamb$ oscillation parameter. With one year's luminosity at BES-III, we can set an upper limit of $δm_{\Lam \Lamb} < 10^{…
While oscillations of solar neutrinos are usually studied using the single-particle quantum-mechanical approach, flavor conversions of supernovae neutrinos are typically analyzed using the kinetic equation for the matrix of densities due to the necessity of including also the scattering processes. Using the Wigner formulation of quantum mechanics we show the equivalence of the quantum-mechanical and kinetic approaches in the limit of collisionless neutrino propagation (in a background medium). Based on this observation we also argue that solutions of the kinetic equation account for the Heisen…
Coherent forward neutron propagation in gas is discussed as a new approach to search for neutron-antineutron oscillations ($ n-\bar{n}$), which violate both $B$ and $B-L$ conservation. We show that one can increase the probability of neutron - antineutron transitions to essentially the free neutron oscillation rate in the presence of a nonzero external magnetic field by tuning the density of an appropriate mixture of gases so that the neutron optical potential of the gas cancels that from an external magnetic field.
The theory pioneered by Blasone and Vitiello describes massive neutrinos as generalized coherent flavor eigenstates within the extended Standard Model. In this paper, we compute the neutron beta decay spectrum for the Blasone-Vitiello theory in a model with two neutrinos. For relativistic neutrinos, the obtained spectrum is in agreement with the Standard Model. However, there are discrepancies when the kinetic energy of the electron is close to the end point energy. The possibility of measuring the discrepancies in future experiments is discussed.
Comment on "Neutrino oscillations originate from virtual excitation of $Z$ bosons" and "Neutrinos produced from $β$ decays of neutrons cannot be in coherent superpositions of different mass eigenstates"
Precision searches for the electric dipole moment of protons in storage ring experiments call for beam-position monitoring in the picometer range. We present the relevant fully quantum mechanical derivation of radiofrequency-driven collective oscillations of a beam in a storage ring.
We examine the current constraints and future sensitivity of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering (CE$ν$NS) experiments to mixing scenarios involving a $Z^\prime$ which interacts via portals with the Standard Model. We contrast the results against those from fixed target, atomic parity violation, and solar neutrino experiments. We demonstrate a significant dependence of the experimental reach on the $Z'$ coupling non-universality and the complementarity of CE$ν$NS to existing searches.
To model the dynamics of the chiral order parameter in a far from equilibrium phase transition, we consider quenching in the O(4) linear sigma model. We argue, and present numerical evidence, that in the period immediately following the quench long wavelength modes of the pion field are amplified. This results in large regions of coherent pion oscillations, and could lead to dramatic phenomenological consequences in heavy ion collisions.
Many theoretical calculations of subtle coherent effects in quantum mechanics do not carefully consider the interface between their calculations and experiment. Calculations for gedanken experiments using initial states not satisfied in realistic experiments give results requiring interpretation. Confusion and ambiguities frequently arise. Calculations for time-dependent mixing oscillations describe non-experiments. Physical experiments describe oscillations in space in the laboratory system resulting from interference between waves having the same energy and time dependence; $not$ different m…
Since the electromagnetic current for a pion system coincides with the third component of the isovector current, the isospin angular oscillation of a coherent field can be a significant source for the electromagnetic emissions. We study the characteristic dilepton and photon emissions from the classical pion field oscillation in the QCD vacuum. The general analytical solution obtained in the nonlinear sigma model is used to calculate the electromagnetic current density, which exhibits a light-front singularity and decreases rapidly as inverse square of the proper time due to a longitudinal exp…
Simple rigorous quantum mechanics with no hand waving nor loopholes clarifies the confusion between three contradictory descriptions of neutrino oscillations: (1)The time oscillations shown in standard textbooks produced by neutrino eigenstates with different masses and different energies. (2) That time oscillations and interference between states having different energies cannot be observed in realistic experiments. (3) That interference between different neutrino mass eigenstates is not observable in "missing mass" experiments where information determining the neutrino mass is available from…
Integrating equations of particle-number and energy-momentum conservation and Maxwell field equations, we study the oscillation and drift of electron and positron pairs coherently with fields after these pairs are produced in external electromagnetic fields. From the electric current of oscillating pairs, we obtain the energy spectrum of electromagnetic dipole radiation. This narrow spectrum is so peculiar that the detection of such radiation can identify pair production and oscillation in strong laser fields. We also obtain the energy spectrum of gravitational quadrapole radiation from the en…
We have provided a numerical study of the influence of the resonant active-sterile neutrino oscillations between electron and sterile neutrinos, on the primordial production of helium-4. The evolution of the neutrino ensembles was followed selfconsistently with the evolution of the nucleons, using exact kinetic equations for the neutrino density matrix and the nucleon number densities in momentum space, from the time of neutrino decoupling till the freeze-out of nucleons at 0.3 MeV. The exact kinetic approach enabled us to study precisely the neutrino depletion, spectrum distortion and neutrin…
We calculate the coherent charmonium photoproduction at intermediate energies accounting for the physics of the charmonium bound states and the dependence of the cross section on the region occupied by color using a correspondingly adjusted generalized vector dominance model (GVDM). In the photon energy domain where the coherence lengths are comparable to the average internucleon distances in nuclei and the nuclear radii we found that significant oscillations of the total and forward photoproduction cross sections governed by the longitudinal nuclear form factor are strongly modified by the ch…
Light sterile neutrinos have been introduced as an explanation for a number of oscillation signals at $Δm^2 \sim 1$ eV$^2$. Neutrino oscillations at relatively short baselines provide a probe of these possible new states. This paper describes an accelerator-based experiment using neutral current coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering to strictly search for active-to-sterile neutrino oscillations. This experiment could, thus, definitively establish the existence of sterile neutrinos and provide constraints on their mixing parameters. A cyclotron-based proton beam can be directed to multiple targe…
We investigate the prospects of next-generation neutrino oscillation experiments DUNE, T2HK and JUNO including TAO within Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT). We also re-interpret COHERENT data in this framework. Considering both charged and neutral current neutrino Non-Standard Interactions (NSIs), we analyse dimension-6 SMEFT operators and derive lower bounds to UV scale $Λ$. The most powerful probe is obtained on ${\cal O}_{{ledq}_{1211}}$ with $Λ\gtrsim$ 450 TeV due to the electron neutrino sample in T2HK near detector. We find DUNE and JUNO to be complementary to T2HK in explori…
Recent studies have demonstrated that in anisotropic environments a coherent spin-flip term arises in the Quantum Kinetic Equations (QKEs) which govern the evolution of neutrino flavor and spin in hot and dense media. This term can mediate neutrino-antineutrino transformation for Majorana neutrinos and active-sterile transformation for Dirac neutrinos. We discuss the physical origin of the coherent spin-flip term and provide explicit expressions for the QKEs in a two-flavor model with spherical geometry. In this context, we demonstrate that coherent neutrino spin transformation depends on the …
We consider the time development of the density matrix for a system coupled to a thermal bath, in models that go beyond the standard two-level systems through addition of an energy excitation degree of freedom and through the possibility of the replacement of the spin algebra by a more complex algebra. We find conditions under which increasing the coupling to the bath above a certain level decreases the rate of entropy production, and in which the limiting behavior is a dissipationless sinusoidal oscillation that could be interpreted as the synchronization of many modes of the uncoupled system…
Reply to Comment on "Neutrino oscillations originate from virtual excitation of Z bosons" and "Neutrinos produced from $β$ decays of neutrons cannot be in coherent superpositions of different mass eigenstates"
The maximum overproduction of helium-4 in cosmological nucleosynthesis with active--sterile neutrino oscillations, nu_e -> nu_s, efficient after decoupling of electron neutrino, is analyzed. The kinetic effects on primordial nucleosynthesis due to neutrino spectrum distortion, caused by oscillations, are precisely taken into account. The maximum overproduction of primordial He-4 as a function of oscillation parameters is obtained from the analysis of the kinetics of the nucleons and the oscillating neutrinos, for the full range of parameters of the discussed oscillation model. A maximum relati…
The discovery of supernova SN 1997ff at z~1.7 has confirmed the expected switch from cosmological acceleration to deceleration, as predicted by the concordance Lambda/CDM model. However, its position in the SN Ia Hubble diagram suggestes that the switch is too pronounced, which here is taken to mean that a cosmological constant is not an adequate description of the state of the vacuum. An 'oscillessence' model is invoked, with a scalar field phi governed by a simple quadratic potential, which gives a better fit to the new data point. The field is undergoing coherent oscillations, and a key fea…
We derive quantum kinetic equations for scalar fields undergoing coherent evolution either in time (coherent particle production) or in space (quantum reflection). Our central finding is that in systems with certain space-time symmetries, quantum coherence manifests itself in the form of new spectral solutions for the dynamical 2-point correlation function. This spectral structure leads to a consistent approximation for dynamical equations that describe coherent evolution in presence of decohering collisions. We illustrate the method by solving the bosonic Klein problem and the bound states fo…
In the context of core-collapse supernovae, Strack and Burrows (Phys. Rev. D 71, 093004 (2005)) have recently developed an extension of the classical Boltzmann kinetic formalism that retains all the standard neutrino oscillation phenomenology, including resonant flavor conversion (the MSW effect), neutrino self-interactions, and the interplay between neutrino-matter coupling and flavor oscillations. In this thesis, I extend the Strack & Burrows formalism to incorporate general relativity, spin degrees of freedom, and a possible neutrino magnetic-moment/magnetic-field interaction.
