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Esteban Roulet

Publications and source records attributed to Esteban Roulet.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
arXiv2004

New Ways to Soft Leptogenesis

Soft supersymmetry breaking terms involving heavy singlet sneutrinos provide new sources of lepton number violation and of CP violation. In addition to the CP violation in mixing, investigated previously, we find that `soft leptogenesis' can be generated by CP violation in decay and in the interference of mixing and decay. These additional ways to leptogenesis can be significant for a singlet neutrino Majorana mass that is not much larger than the supersymmetry breaking scale, $M < 100 m_{SUSY}$. In contrast to CP violation in mixing, for some of these new contributions the sneutrino oscillation rate can be much faster than the decay rate, so that the bilinear scalar term need not be smaller than its natural scale.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2004

Statistics of cluster multiplicity and the nature of UHE cosmic ray sources

We study in detail the properties of clusters of ultra high energy cosmic ray events, looking in particular to their angular correlation function, to the relative frequency of clusters with different multiplicities (e.g. doublets vs. triplets or quadruplets), as well as the way in which these quantities should evolve for different ultra high energy cosmic rays source scenarios as a function of the experimental exposure achieved. We identify some useful tools which can help to characterise the nature of the cosmic ray sources in a more precise way after a modest increase in statistics will be achieved in the very near future, even before strong signals from individual sources become eventually observable.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2003

Astroparticle Theory: Some New Insights into High Energy Cosmic Rays

Some new developments obtained in the last few years concerning the propagation of high energy cosmic rays are discussed. In particular, it is shown how the inclusion of drift effects in the transport diffusion equations leads naturally to an explanation for the knee, for the second knee and for the observed behavior of the composition and anisotropies between the knee and the ankle. It is shown that the trend towards a heavier composition above the knee has significant impact on the predicted neutrino fluxes above $10^{14}$ eV. The effects of magnetic lensing on the cosmic rays with energies above the ankle are also discussed, analyzing the main features of the different regimes that appear between the diffusive behavior that takes place at lower energies and the regime of small deflections present at the highest ones.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2003

Leptogenesis from Supersymmetry Breaking

We show that soft supersymmetry breaking terms involving the heavy sneutrinos can lead to sneutrino-antisneutrino mixing and to new sources of CP violation, which are present even if a single generation is considered. These terms are naturally present in supersymmetric versions of leptogenesis scenarios, and they induce indirect CP violation in the decays of the heavy sneutrinos, eventually generating a baryon asymmetry. This new contribution can be comparable to or even dominate over the asymmetry produced in traditional leptogenesis scenarios.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2003

Rigidity dependent knee and cosmic ray induced high energy neutrino fluxes

Scenarios in which the knee of the cosmic ray spectrum depends on the particle rigidities usually predict that the cosmic ray composition becomes heavier above the knee and have associated a change in the spectral slope of each individual nuclear component which is steeper than the change ($Δα\simeq 0.3$) observed in the total spectrum. We show that this implies that the very high energy ($E_ν>10^{14}$ eV) diffuse neutrino fluxes produced by cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere or colliding with the interstellar medium in the Galaxy will be significantly suppressed, making their detection harder but also reducing the background for the search of other (more challenging) astrophysical neutrino sources.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2003

Decaying neutron propagation in the Galaxy and the Cosmic Ray anisotropy at 1 EeV

We study the cosmic ray arrival distribution expected from a source of neutrons in the galactic center at energies around 1 EeV and compare it with the anisotropy detected by AGASA and SUGAR. Besides the point-like signal in the source direction produced by the direct neutrons, an extended signal due to the protons produced in neutron decays is expected. This associated proton signal also leads to an excess in the direction of the spiral arm. For realistic models of the regular and random galactic magnetic fields, the resulting anisotropy as a function of the energy is obtained. We find that for the anisotropy to become sufficiently suppressed below E\sim 10^{17.9}eV, a significant random magnetic field component is required, while on the other hand, this also tends to increase the angular spread of the associated proton signal and to reduce the excess in the spiral arm direction. The source luminosity required in order that the right ascension anisotropy be 4% for the AGASA angular exposure corresponds to a prediction for the point-like flux from direct neutrons compatible with the flux detected by SUGAR. We also analyse the distinguishing features predicted for a large statistics southern observatory.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2003

Cosmic ray spectrum and anisotropies from the knee to the second knee

We consider the scenario in which the knee in the cosmic ray spectrum is due to a change in the escape mechanism of cosmic rays from the Galaxy from one dominated by transverse diffusion to one dominated by drifts. We show that this scenario explains not only the changes in spectral slope at the knee and at the second knee, but can also account for the main characteristics of the observed energy dependent anisotropy amplitude and phase of first harmonic in the energy range between $10^{15}$ and $10^{18}$ eV. This provides a useful handle to distinguish this diffusion/drift model from other scenarios proposed to explain the knee in the spectrum.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2002

Turbulent diffusion and drift in galactic magnetic fields and the explanation of the knee in the cosmic ray spectrum

We reconsider the scenario in which the knee in the cosmic ray spectrum is explained as due to a change in the escape mechanism of cosmic rays from the Galaxy from one dominated by transverse diffusion to one dominated by drifts. We solve the diffusion equations adopting realistic galactic field models and using diffusion coefficients appropriate for strong turbulence (with a Kolmogorov spectrum of fluctuations) and consistent with the assumed magnetic fields. We show that properly taking into account these effects leads to a natural explanation of the knee in the spectrum, and a transition towards a heavier composition above the knee is predicted.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2002

Cosmic ray drift, the second knee and galactic anisotropies

We show that the second knee in the cosmic ray spectrum (i.e. the steepening occurring at $E\simeq 4\times 10^{17}$ eV) could be related to drift effects affecting the heaviest nuclear component, the iron group nuclei, in a scenario in which the knee at $3\times 10^{15}$ eV indicates the onset of drift effects in the lighter proton component. We also study the anisotropies resulting from diffusion and drift currents in the Galaxy, showing their potential relevance to account for the AGASA observations at $E\sim 10^{18}$ eV, before the extragalactic component becomes dominant.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2002

Astrophysical magnetic field reconstruction and spectroscopy with ultra high energy cosmic rays

The next generation of ultra high energy cosmic ray experiments will probably detect several dozens of events clustered around the direction towards each of the most powerful extragalactic sources. We develop a method which could make possible to reconstruct, from the arrival directions and energies of the clustered events, the strength and coherence properties of the magnetic field along the line of sight towards the sources. The method exploits peculiar signatures arising from magnetic lensing effects, such as the strong flux magnification of multiple images around caustics. We also discuss how to obtain information about the cosmic ray composition, and apply this method to samples of simulated data.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2002

Lensing of ultra-high energy cosmic rays in turbulent magnetic fields

We consider the propagation of ultra high energy cosmic rays through turbulent magnetic fields and study the transition between the regimes of single and multiple images of point-like sources. The transition occurs at energies around $E_c\simeq Z~41 {\rm EeV}(B_{rms}/5 μ{\rm G}) (L/ 2 {\rm kpc})^{3/2}\sqrt{50 {\rm pc}/L_c}$, where $L$ is the distance traversed by the CR's with electric charge $Ze$ in the turbulent magnetic field of root mean square strength $B_{rms}$ and coherence length $L_c$. We find that above $2 E_c$ only sources located in a fraction of a few % of the sky can reach large amplifications of its principal image or start developing multiple images. New images appear in pairs with huge magnifications, and they remain amplified over a significant range of energies. At decreasing energies the fraction of the sky in which sources can develop multiple images increases, reaching about 50% for $E>E_c/2$. The magnification peaks become however increasingly narrower and for $E<E_c/3$ their integrated effect becomes less noticeable. If a uniform magnetic field component is also present it would further narrow down the peaks, shrinking the energy range in which they can be relevant. Below $E\simeq E_c/10$ some kind of scintillation regime is reached, where many demagnified images of a source are present but with overall total magnification of order unity. We also search for lensing signatures in the AGASA data studying two-dimensional correlations in angle and energy and find some interesting hints.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2001

Cosmic ray photodisintegration and the knee of the spectrum

We explore in some detail the scenario proposed to explain the observed knee of the cosmic ray (CR) spectrum as due to the effects of photodisintegration of the CR nuclei by interactions with optical and soft UV photons in the source region. We show that the photon column densities needed to explain the experimental data are significantly lower than those obtained in previous estimations which neglected multinucleon emission in the photodisintegration process. We also treat more accurately the photodisintegration thresholds, we discuss the effects of photopion production processes and the neutron escape mechanism, identifying the physical processes responsible for the qualitative features of the results. This scenario would require the CR nuclei to traverse column densities of $\sim 5 \times 10^{27}- 2 \times 10^{28}$ eV/cm$^2$ after being accelerated in order to reproduce the observed knee, and predicts that the CR composition should become lighter above $\sim 10^{16}$ eV.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2000

Neutrino Astrophysics

A general overview of neutrino physics and astrophysics is given, starting with a historical account of the development of our understanding of neutrinos and how they helped to unravel the structure of the Standard Model. We discuss why it is so important to establish if neutrinos are massive and introduce the main scenarios to provide them a mass. The present bounds and the positive indications in favor of non-zero neutrino masses are discussed, including the recent results on atmospheric and solar neutrinos. The major role that neutrinos play in astrophysics and cosmology is illustrated.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2000

Magnetic lensing of ultra high energy cosmic rays

We discuss several effects due to lensing of ultra high energy cosmic rays by the regular component of the galactic magnetic field. Large flux magnification around caustics can be a significant source of clustering in the arrival directions of UHECRs of comparable energy. We also discuss lensing effects in a hypothetical galactic magnetic wind model recently proposed to explain the extremely high energy cosmic rays so far observed as originating from a single source (M87). This model implies large flux magnifications, which reduce the power requirements on the source, and a significant asymmetry in the expected flux between the north and south galactic hemispheres.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2000

Magnetic lensing of extremely high energy cosmic rays in a galactic wind

We show that in the model of Galactic magnetic wind recently proposed to explain the extremely high energy (EHE) cosmic rays so far observed as originating from a single source (M87 in the Virgo cluster), the magnetic field strongly magnifies the fluxes and produces multiple images of the source. The apparent position on Earth of the principal image moves, for decreasing energies, towards the galactic south. It is typically amplified by an order of magnitude at $E/Z\sim 2\times 10^{20}$ eV, but becomes strongly demagnified below $10^{20}$ eV. At energies below $E/Z\sim 1.3\times 10^{20}$ eV, all events in the northern galactic hemisphere are due to secondary images, which have huge amplifications ($>10^2$). This model would imply strong asymmetries between the north and south galactic hemispheres, such as a (latitude dependent) upper cut-off value below $2\times 10^{20}$ eV for CR protons arriving to the south and lower fluxes in the south than in the north above $10^{20}$ eV. The large resulting magnifications reduce the power requirements on the source, but the model needs a significant tunning between the direction to the source and the symmetry axis of the wind. If more modest magnetic field strengths were assumed, a scenario in which the observed EHE events are heavier nuclei whose flux is strongly lensed becomes also plausible and would predict that a transition from a light composition to a heavier one could take place at the highest energies.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2000

Microlensing searches of dark matter

The evolution of the observational results of microlensing towards the LMC and some of the suggested interpretations to account for them are discussed. It is emphasized that the results at present are indicative of a lensing population of white dwarfs, possibly in the spheroid (not dark halo) of the Galaxy, together with the more standard backgrounds of stellar populations in the Magellanic Clouds and in the Galaxy. This is also hinted by dynamical estimates of the spheroid mass and by recent direct searches of old white dwarfs.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2000

Fermion production during preheating after hybrid inflation

At the end of inflation, the coherent oscillations of the inflaton field may resonantly amplify the long wavelength modes of both bosons and fermions coupled to it. We study the resonant production of both kinds of particles during preheating in a model of hybrid inflation. The coherent time evolution of the inflaton and the Higgs fields after inflation induce a very different production of fermions depending on whether they are coupled to the Higgs or to the inflaton. For reasonable values of the model parameters, the fermion production through parametric resonance can be very efficient. We study the relative growth of the fermion and boson energy densities during preheating in hybrid models. During the initial stage of preheating, fermion production dominates the relative energy density, while the exponential growth of bosonic modes soon takes over.

hep-ph↗