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arXiv · 1109.6667

Constraints and tests of the OPERA superluminal neutrinos

Abstract

The superluminal neutrinos detected by OPERA indicates Lorentz invariance violation (LIV) of the neutrino sector at the order of $10^{-5}$. We study the implications of the result in this work. We find that such a large LIV implied by OPERA data will make the neutrino production process $π\to μ+ ν_μ$ kinematically forbidden for neutrino energy greater than about 5 GeV. The OPERA detection of neutrinos at 40 GeV can constrain the LIV parameter to be smaller than $3\times 10^{-7}$. Furthermore the neutrino decay in the LIV framework will modify the neutrino spectrum greatly. The atmospheric neutrino spectrum measured by IceCube can constrain the LIV parameter to the level of $10^{-12}$. The future detection of astrophysical neutrinos of Galactic sources is expected to be able to give even stronger constraint on the LIV parameter of neutrinos.

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Xiao-Jun Bi, Peng-Fei Yin, Zhao-Huan Yu, Qiang Yuan. 2011-12-12. Constraints and tests of the OPERA superluminal neutrinos. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.107.241802

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