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Graciela Gelmini

Publications and source records attributed to Graciela Gelmini.

33 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
arXiv2002

Cosmic rays above the ankle from Z-bursts

Neutrinos from far away sources annihilating at the Z resonance on relic neutrinos may give origin to the ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays. Here we present predictions of this mechanism with relic neutrinos lighter than 1 eV, which do not gravitationally cluster. We show that not only the super GZK events, but the "ankle" and all events above it can be accounted for. Most primaries above the ankle are predicted to be nucleons up to $10^{20.0}$ eV and photons at higher energies. We also find an accumulation at the GZK cutoff energy, a hint of which can be seen in the data.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2001

Expected Signals in Relic Neutrino Detectors

Here we estimate the magnitude of the signals expected for realistic cosmic neutrino backgrounds in detectors attempting to measure the mechanical forces exerted on macroscopic targets by the elastic scattering of relic neutrinos. We study effects proportional to the weak coupling constant $G_F$ and to $G_F^2$ for Dirac and Majorana neutrinos, either relativistic or non-relativistic, both gravitationally bound or not.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2001

Detectability of a subdominant density component of cold dark matter

Here we examine the detectability of collisionless dark matter candidates that may constitute not all but only a subdominant component of galactic cold dark matter. We show that current axion searches are not suited for a subdominant component, while direct WIMP searches would not be severely affected by the reduced density. In fact, the direct detection rates of neutralinos stay almost constant even if neutralinos constitute 1% of the halo dark matter. Only for lower densities do the rates decrease with density. Even neutralinos accounting for only $10^{-4}$ of the local dark halo density are within proposed future discovery limits. We comment also on indirect WIMP searches.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2000

Measurement of the gluon PDF at small x with neutrino telescopes

We analyze the possibility that neutrino telescopes may provide an experimental determination of the slope lambda of the gluon distribution in the proton at momentum fractions x smaller than the accelerator reach. The method is based on a linear relation between lambda and the spectral index (slope) of the down-going atmospheric muon flux above 100 TeV, for which there is no background. Considering the uncertainties in the charm production cross section and in the cosmic ray composition, we estimate the error on the measurement of lambda through this method, excluding the experimental error of the telescopes, to be ~ +/- 0.2

hep-ph↗
arXiv2000

Unstable superheavy relic particles as a source of neutrinos responsible for the ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays

Decays of superheavy relic particles may produce extremely energetic neutrinos. Their annihilations on the relic neutrinos can be the origin of the cosmic rays with energies beyond the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cutoff. The red shift acts as a cosmological filter selecting the sources at some particular value z_e, for which the present neutrino energy is close to the Z pole of the annihilation cross section. We predict no directional correlation of the ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays with the galactic halo. At the same time, there can be some directional correlations in the data, reflecting the distribution of matter at red shift z=z_e. Both of these features are manifest in the existing data. Our scenario is consistent with the neutrino mass reported by Super-Kamiokande and requires no lepton asymmetry or clustering of the background neutrinos.

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arXiv1999

Prompt atmospheric neutrinos and muons: dependence on the gluon distribution function

We compute the next-to-leading order QCD predictions for the vertical flux of atmospheric muons and neutrinos from decays of charmed particles, for different PDF's (MRS-R1, MRS-R2, CTEQ-4M and MRST) and different extrapolations of these at small partonic momentum fraction x. We find that the predicted fluxes vary up to almost two orders of magnitude at the largest energies studied, depending on the chosen extrapolation of the PDF's. We show that the spectral index of the atmospheric leptonic fluxes depends linearly on the slope of the gluon distribution function at very small x. This suggests the possibility of obtaining some bounds on this slope in ``neutrino telescopes'', at values of x not reachable at colliders, provided the spectral index of atmospheric leptonic fluxes could be determined.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1999

Highest-energy cosmic rays from Fermi-degenerate relic neutrinos consistent with Super-Kamiokande results

Relic neutrinos with mass 0.07 (+0.02/-0.04) eV, in the range consistent with Super-Kamiokande data, can explain the cosmic rays with energies in excess of the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cutoff. The spectrum of ultra-high energy cosmic rays produced in this fashion has some distinctive features that may help identify their origin. Our mechanism does not require but is consistent with a neutrino density high enough to be a new kind of hot dark matter.

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arXiv1999

Prompt atmospheric neutrinos and muons: NLO vs LO QCD predictions

We compare the leading and next-to-leading order QCD predictions for the flux of atmospheric muons and neutrinos from decays of charmed particles. We find that the full NLO lepton fluxes can be approximated to within 10% by the Born--level fluxes multiplied by an overall factor of 2.2-2.4, which depends slightly on the PDF. This supports the approach in Thunman, Ingelman, Gondolo (1996). We also find that their very low lepton fluxes are due to the mild slope they used for the gluon distribution function at small momentum fractions, and that substantially larger lepton fluxes result when the slope of the gluon distribution function at small momentum fractions is larger.

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arXiv1996

Strange Baryonic Matter from Chiral Effective Lagrangians

We investigate the existence of bound states of baryons in a kaon condensate using chiral mean field theory. The interactions are described by an effective SU(3)_L X SU(3)_R chiral lagrangian where terms of higher order in density, baryon momentum, and kaon mass are suppressed by powers of the symmetry breaking scale, Lambda. We take up to next to leading order terms (n = 2,3,4). We search for infinite baryon number solutions, namely ``strange baryonic matter'', using a Thomas-Fermi approximation for a slowly varying condensate and a lowest order Hartree approximation to describe the many body interactions. For simplicity we study a pure K^0 condensate and only neutrons, the lightest baryons in that condensate. We find solutions with neutron number densities, rho_n > 3.5 rho_0, where rho_0 is the infinite nuclear matter density. This is consistent with the estimate of the onset of a K-condensate at rho_n = 2-4 rho_0. We show that the binding energies, E_b, grow with rho_n and for rho_n < 7 rho_0 (at rho_n > 7 rho_0 perturbative expansion is lost) we find E_b < 150 MeV (E_b < 70 MeV for rho_n < 5 rho_0) even in the most favorable cases. These binding energies may be too low for this type of matter to appear and persist in the early universe.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1996

Cosmology and Astroparticles

Talks given at the V Taller de Particulas y Campos (V-TPyC) and V Taller Latinoam. de Fenomenologia de las Interac. Fundam. (V-TLFIF), Puebla, Mexico, 10/30 - 11/3 1995. These lectures are devoted to elementary particle physicists and assume the reader has very little or no knowledge of cosmology and astrophysics. After a brief historical introduction to the development of modern cosmology and astro-particles in which the Hot Big Bang model is defined, the Robertson-Walker metric and the dynamics of the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker cosmology are discussed in section 2. In section 3 the main observational features of the Universe are reviewed, including a description of our neighbourhood, homogeneity and isotropy, the cosmic background radiation, the expansion, the age and the matter content of the Universe. A brief account of the thermal history of the Universe follows in section 4, and relic abundances are discussed in section 5. Section 6 is devoted to primordial nucleosynthesis, section 7 to structure formation in the Universe and section 8 to the possibility of detection of the dark matter in the halo of our galaxy.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1995

Chiral Effective Lagrangian Description of Bulk Nuclear Matter

Here we point out that the four-nucleon terms incorporate into lowest order non-linear chiral effective Lagrangians the same description of bulk nuclear matter contained in the Walecka model, that is generally considered satisfactory. We find this point worth noticing because, while the Walecka model is an entirely phenomenological renormalizable model, non-linear chiral Lagrangians have a deep basis in elementary particle physics, and, in this sense, are more fundamental.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1994

Neutrino Masses

This is a review for Reports of Progress in Physics. After an introduction we start by explaining the different neutrino masses corresponding to different types of neutrinos, Dirac or Majorana, in section 2. In section 3 we discuss the main elementary particle models for neutrino masses and their distinctive phenomenological consequences. In section 4 we describe the status of direct mass searches and Majorana mass searches in neutrinoless double beta decays. In section 5 we go over the many cosmological implications of, and constraints on, neutrino properties, mainly masses and lifetimes. Sections 6, 7 and 8 review neutrino oscillations, the solar neutrino problem and the atmospheric neutrino problem, their implications and the current and future experiments. In particular, we explain oscillations in vacuum in section 6 and oscillations in matter in section 7. Section 9 summarizes the main bounds imposed by stars, mainly SN1987A. A few concluding remarks follow.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1993

Kinetics of Sub-Critical Bubbles and the Electroweak Transition

We investigate the role of large amplitude sub-critical thermal fluctuations in the dynamics of first order phase transitions. In particular, we obtain a kinetic equation for the number density of sub-critical fluctuations of the broken-symmetric phase within the symmetric phase, modeled as spherical bubbles, and solve it analytically for temperatures above the critical temperature. We study the approach to equilibrium and obtain the equilibrium distribution of sub-critical bubbles of the unstable phase by examining three possible mechanisms responsible for their removal; their shrinking, their coupling to thermal noise, and by thermal fluctuations of the true vacuum inside them. We show that for sufficiently strong transitions, either the shrinking or the coupling to thermal noise dominate the dynamics. As the strength of the transition weakens we show that sub-critical fluctuations become progressively more important, as a larger fraction of the total volume is occupied by the broken-symmetric phase, until the point where our analytical approach breaks down. Our investigation suggests that pre-transitional phenomena may considerably change the dynamics of sufficiently weak first-order transitions. We apply our results to the standard electroweak transition.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1993

Beyond the Standard Model

These are three lectures given at the ``Lake Louise Winter Institute", (Lake Louise Canada, Feb 1993). A pedagogical introduction is given to attempts to formulate a more fundamental theory of elementary particles than that provided by the standard model. After a review of the basic elements of the standard model, its unsatisfactory features, and ideas to modify them will be discussed. An introduction to Technicolour, t-quark condensates, supersymmetric models, GUT's and a brief comment on composite models follow.

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