In this work, we have assumed special structures for the charged and neutral mass matrices in the lepton sector, inspired by structures for the up and down quark mass matrices that result by assuming a certain number of symmetrical zeros in their entries named texture zeros. A prediction of the lepton mixing matrix results from the rotation matrices that diagonalize the mass matrices in the neutral and charged lepton sectors. The use of texture zeros reduces the number of spurious parameters to the minimal ones needed to explain observations i.e. charged lepton masses and neutrino oscillation parameters. Specifically, we have considered the case of five texture zeros and we have confronted the resulting lepton mixing matrices with current measurements in the neutrino sector. Finally, sensitivities to the independent parameters in the mixing predicted by the nonequivalent forms were studied using simulated events at the DUNE neutrino oscillation experiment. We have found that DUNE is sensitive to nonzero CP violation allowed in the models.
Oscillation studies play a central role in elucidating at least some aspects of the flavor problem. Here we examine the status of the predictions of a lepton quarticity flavor theory of neutrino oscillations against the existing global sample of oscillation data. By performing quantitative simulations we also determine the potential of the upcoming DUNE experiment in narrowing down the currently ill-measured oscillation parameters $θ_{23}$ and $δ_{\text{CP}}$. We present the expected improved sensitivity on these parameters for different assumptions.
We examine the capabilities of the DUNE experiment in probing leptonic CP violation within the framework of theories with generalized CP symmetries characterized by the texture zeros of the corresponding CP transformation matrices. We investigate DUNE's potential to probe the two least known oscillation parameters, the atmospheric mixing angle $θ_{23}$ and the Dirac CP-phase $δ_{\rm CP}$. We fix theory-motivated benchmarks for ($ \sin^2θ_{23}, δ_{\rm CP} $) and take them as true values in our simulations. Assuming 3.5 years of neutrino running plus 3.5 years in the antineutrino mode, we show t…
We check the capability of the DUNE neutrino experiment to detect new sources of leptonic CP violation beside the single phase expected in the Standard Model. We illustrate our strategy based on the measurement of CP asymmetries in the case New Physics will show up as Non-Standard neutrino Interactions and sterile neutrino states and show that the most promising one, once the experimental errors are taken into account in both scenarios, is the one related to the $ν_μ\to ν_e$ transition.
Next generation neutrino oscillation experiments like DUNE and T2HK are multi-purpose observatories, with a rich physics program beyond oscillation measurements. A special role is played by their near detector facilities, which are particularly well-suited to search for weakly coupled dark sector particles produced in the primary target. In this paper, we demonstrate this by estimating the sensitivity of the DUNE near detectors to the scattering of sub-GeV DM particles and to the decay of sub-GeV sterile neutrinos ("heavy neutral leptons"). We discuss in particular the importance of the DUNE-P…
We point out that the LDMX (Light Dark Matter eXperiment) detector design, conceived to search for sub-GeV dark matter, will also have very advantageous characteristics to pursue electron-nucleus scattering measurements of direct relevance to the neutrino program at DUNE and elsewhere. These characteristics include a 4-GeV electron beam, a precision tracker, electromagnetic and hadronic calorimeters with near 2$π$ azimuthal acceptance from the forward beam axis out to $\sim$40$^\circ$ angle, and low reconstruction energy threshold. LDMX thus could provide (semi)exclusive cross section measurem…
Heavy nearly-sterile neutrinos are a common ingredient in extensions of the Standard Model which aim to explain neutrino masses, like for instance in Type I seesaw models, or one of its variants. If the scale of the new Heavy Neutral Leptons (HNLs) is sufficiently low, observable signatures can arise in a range of current and upcoming experiments, from the LHC to neutrino experiments. In this article, we discuss the phenomenology of sterile neutrinos in the MeV to GeV mass range, focusing on their decays. We embed our discussion in a realistic mass model and consider the resulting implications…
We propose to use the unique event topology and reconstruction capabilities of liquid argon time projection chambers to study sub-GeV atmospheric neutrinos. The detection of low energy recoiled protons in DUNE allows for a determination of the leptonic $CP$-violating phase independent from the accelerator neutrino measurement. Our findings indicate that this analysis can exclude several values of $δ_{CP}$ beyond the $3σ$ level. Moreover, the determination of the sub-GeV atmospheric neutrino flux will have important consequences in the detection of diffuse supernova neutrinos and in dark matter…
We introduce the mono-neutrino signal at neutrino detectors as a smoking gun of sub-GeV scale dark matter candidates that mainly interact with standard model neutrinos. In a mono-neutrino process, invisible particles, either dark matter themselves or the mediator particle, are radiated off a neutrino when it undergoes the charged-current weak interaction. The associated signals include a missing transverse momentum with respect to the incoming neutrino beam direction and the production of wrong-sign charged leptons. We demonstrate the potential leading role of the future DUNE experiment, using…
We study how nonstandard neutrino interactions (NSI) may be probed by a combination of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering, neutrino oscillation and collider data, from COHERENT, DUNE, T2HK and the high-luminosity (HL) LHC. We focus on NSI induced by a new flavored gauge boson $Z'$ in a generic anomaly-free ultraviolet-complete model. For $Z'$ masses above 10 GeV, the HL-LHC has the best sensitivity regardless of the flavor structure of the model. For masses between 0.01 GeV-10 GeV, current LHCb data and future COHERENT data have the best sensitivity unless the $Z'$ couplings to the f…
A variety of new physics scenarios allow for neutrinos to up-scatter into a heavy neutral lepton state. For a range of couplings and neutrino energies, the heavy neutrino may travel some distance before decaying to visible final states. When both the up-scattering and decay occur within the detector volume, these "double bang" events produce distinctive phenomenology with very low background. In this work, we first consider the current sensitivity at Super-Kamiokande via the atmospheric neutrino flux, and find current data may already provide new constraints. We then examine projected future s…
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a leading experiment in neutrino physics which is presently under construction. DUNE aims to measure the yet unknown parameters in the three flavour oscillation scenario which includes discovery of leptonic CP violation, determination of the mass hierarchy and determination of the octant of $θ_{23}$. Additionally, the ancillary goals of DUNE include probing the sub-dominant effects induced by new physics. A widely studied new physics scenario is that of nonstandard neutrino interactions (NSI) in propagation which impacts the oscillations of ne…
Bi-large patterns for the leptonic mixing matrix are confronted with current neutrino oscillation data. We analyse the status of these patterns and determine, through realistic simulations, the potential of upcoming long-baseline experiment DUNE in testing bi-large \emph{ansatze} and discriminating amongst them.
We propose a novel analysis strategy, that leverages the unique capabilities of the DUNE experiment, to study tau neutrinos. We integrate collider physics ideas, such as jet clustering algorithms in combination with machine learning techniques, into neutrino measurements. Through the construction of a set of observables and kinematic cuts, we obtain a superior discrimination of the signal ($S$) over the background ($B$). In a single year, using the nominal neutrino beam mode, DUNE may achieve $S/\sqrt{B}$ of $3.3$ and $2.3$ for the hadronic and leptonic decay channels of the tau respectively. …
We explore the capabilities of the upcoming Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) to measure $ν_τ$ charged-current interactions and the associated oscillation probability $P(ν_μ\to ν_τ)$ at its far detector, concentrating on how such results can be used to probe neutrino properties and interactions. DUNE has the potential to identify significantly more $ν_τ$ events than all existing experiments and can use this data sample to nontrivially test the three-massive-neutrinos paradigm by providing complementary measurements to those from the $ν_e$ appearance and $ν_μ$ disappearance channels. …
We consider a new technique for neutrino energy and topology reconstruction at DUNE. In particular, we show that when the direction of the incoming neutrino is known, one can use the measured directions of the outgoing leptonic and hadronic particles to reconstruct poorly-measured quantities, such as the hadronic cascade energy. We show that this alternative technique yields an energy resolution which is comparable to current reconstruction methods which sum measured energies. As a proof of concept we apply this new reconstruction method to a search for dark matter annihilation in the Sun. We …
Non-Abelian discrete symmetries provide an interesting opportunity to address the flavor puzzle in the lepton sector. However, the number of currently viable models based on such symmetries is rather large. High-precision measurements of the leptonic mixing parameters by future neutrino experiments, including ESSnuSB, T2HK, DUNE, and JUNO, will be crucial to test such models. We show that the complementarity among these experiments offers a powerful tool for narrowing down this broad class of lepton flavor models.
One proposed component of the upcoming Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) near detector complex is a multi-purpose, magnetized, gaseous argon time projection chamber: the Multi-Purpose Detector (MPD). We explore the new-physics potential of the MPD, focusing on scenarios in which the MPD is significantly more sensitive to new physics than a liquid argon detector, specifically searches for semi-long-lived particles that are produced in/near the beam target and decay in the MPD. The specific physics possibilities studied are searches for dark vector bosons mixing kinetically with the St…
A number of different effects of the violation of the Equivalence Principle (VEP), taken as sub-leading mechanism of neutrino flavor oscillation, are examined within the framework of the DUNE experiment. We study the possibility of obtaining a misleading neutrino oscillation parameter region caused by our unawareness of VEP. Additionally, we evaluate the impact on the measurement of CP violation and the distinction of neutrino mass hierarchy at DUNE. Besides, limits on VEP for a wide variety of textures of the matrix that connects neutrino gravity eigenstates to flavor eigenstates are imposed.…
We study the capabilities of the DUNE near detector to probe deviations from unitarity of the leptonic mixing matrix, the 3+1 sterile formalism and Non-Standard Interactions affecting neutrino production and detection. We clarify the relation and possible mappings among the three formalisms at short-baseline experiments, and we add to current analyses in the literature the study of the $ν_μ \rightarrow ν_τ$ appearance channel. We study in detail the impact of spectral uncertainties on the sensitivity to new physics using the DUNE near detector, which has been widely overlooked in the literatur…
The DUNE near detector will collect an unprecedented large number of neutrino interactions, allowing the precise measurement of rare processes such as neutrino trident production, i.e. the generation of a lepton-antilepton pair through the scattering of a neutrino off a heavy nucleus. The event rate of this process is a powerful probe to a well-motivated parameter space of new physics beyond the Standard Model. In this paper, we perform a detailed sensitivity study of the DUNE near detector to neutrino tridents. We provide state-of-the-art predictions for the Standard Model cross sections and …
We show that, the decoherence phenomena applied to the neutrino system could lead us to have an observable breaking of the fundamental CPT symmetry. We require a specific textures of non-diagonal decoherence matrices, with non-zero $δ_{CP}$, for having such observations. Using the information from the CPT conjugate channels: $ν_μ \rightarrow ν_μ$ and $\barν_μ \rightarrow \barν_μ$ and its corresponding backgrounds, we have estimated the sensitivity of DUNE experiment for testing CPT under the previous conditions. Four scenarios for energy dependent decoherence parameters $Γ_{E_ν}=Γ\times (E_ν/\…
Probing non-unitarity of the PMNS matrix in P2SO and comparison with DUNE
School of Physics, University of Hyderabad（海德拉巴大学物理学院）；Center of Excellence for Advanced Materials and Sensing Devices, Ruđer Bošković Institute（鲁德·博什科维奇研究所先进材料与传感设备卓越中心）
We study the capabilities of the DUNE near detector to probe the 3+1 sterile formalism and the non-unitarity of the leptonic sector. We add to the current analyses in the literature, the use of the charged current events for the $ν_τ$ appearance channel and the consideration of the energy spectral uncertainty (shape uncertainty) for the different channels which plays an important role, especially at the near detector, and has been usually overlooked in the literature. We find that even with this more conservative and realistic approach, we still obtain an improvement in the sensitivity with re…
We discuss the impact of matter density profile shape on the determination of nonstandard neutrino matter interactions (NSI) in the context of the long baseline accelerator experiments such as Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). The primary scientific goals of DUNE are to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy, the leptonic CP violation phase, and the existence of new physics beyond the standard model of particles. Here we study the role of different earth matter density profiles on the question of observing standard oscillation as wells as NSI at DUNE. We consider two different earth …
Imposing non-Abelian discrete flavour symmetries to neutrino non-standard interactions (NSIs) is discussed for the first time. For definiteness, we choose $A_4$ as the flavour symmetry, which is subsequently broken to the residual symmetry $Z_2$ in the neutrino sector. We provide a general discussion on flavour structures of NSIs from higher-dimensional operators ($d\leqslant8$) without inducing unnecessary tree-level 4-charged-fermion interactions. Both $A_4$- and $Z_2$-motivated NSI textures are obtained. UV completions of higher-dimensional operators lead to extra experimental constraints o…
