arXiv subjects

Hiroshi Nunokawa

Publications and source records attributed to Hiroshi Nunokawa.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

After 60 years, here comes the Sun

For sixty years, the Sun served neutrino physics more than the reverse: its neutrinos established oscillations rather than probing the star itself. That is now changing. Reactor antineutrinos have pinned down the oscillation parameters governing solar-neutrino flavour conversion so precisely that the propagation-related uncertainty is becoming negligible -- closing the first of two abysses. Solar neutrinos can, at last, be turned on the Sun. Yet a second abyss remains: today's solar-neutrino detection falls an order of magnitude short of the precision the Standard Solar Model already predicts for the dominant pp flux ($>\,$90$\%$) -- a gap no reactor experiment can close. The intrinsic $^{14}\mathrm{C}$ background walls off the pp region; only new detection techniques can breach it. Bridging this second abyss demands a revolution, not an increment. Combined with helioseismology's complementary reading of the Sun's mechanical structure, precision neutrino measurements of the nuclear source terms would enable a multi-messenger heliotomography of the solar interior -- reading our star from both sides at once. A new age of solar discoveries may follow, on one condition: that the field builds the instruments equal to the task.

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arXiv2026

Ultralight dark matter search in a large liquid scintillator detector

The nature of dark matter remains one of the most profound mysteries in modern physics. In this work, we investigate the phenomenological implications of ultralight scalar dark matter (ULDM) coupled to neutrinos. We focus on a large homogeneous liquid scintillator detector, analyzing the regime where ULDM oscillations lead to time-averaged distortions in neutrino oscillation probabilities. We derive sensitivity limits on the modulation parameters $η_{Δ_{21}}$ and $η_{Δ_{31}}$, which quantify ULDM-induced smearing effect in oscillations driven by solar ($Δm^2_{21}$) and atmospheric ($Δm^2_{31}$) mass-squared differences. We further demonstrate that ULDM interactions could produce a mild impact on both the determinations of the neutrino oscillation parameters and the neutrino mass ordering sensitivity. These results showcase the benefits of a large liquid scintillator detector as a powerful probe of neutrino-ULDM interactions via neutrino oscillations.

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arXiv2026

Impact of New Physics on the JUNO-Long-Baseline Synergy in Neutrino Mass Ordering Determination

The determination of the neutrino mass ordering is one of the flagship goals in particle physics. A well-known and powerful synergy emerges when combining high-precision measurements of the effective atmospheric mass-squared splitting from electron antineutrino disappearance in reactor experiments with that from muon (anti)neutrino disappearance in accelerator-based long-baseline experiments. To fully exploit this synergy, percent-level precision in the atmospheric mass splitting is required-a target that JUNO is expected to achieve within a few months of data taking. This motivated the formulation of a mass ordering sum rule for neutrino disappearance channels, which shows that by combining data from T2K and NOvA with JUNO after one year of operation, the neutrino mass ordering can be determined at the $3σ$ confidence level. Since JUNO has recently started taking data, it is timely to ask whether this sum rule remains robust in the presence of new physics. We identify the necessary conditions for new physics to affect the sum rule and demonstrate that, in some cases, such effects could lead to an incorrect inference of the mass ordering. As concrete examples, we consider Scalar Non-Standard Interactions (SNSI) and neutrinos coupled to an ultralight scalar field. We find that, for SNSI, current constraints render any modification of the sum rule negligible, whereas in the latter case, the inference of the ordering requires caution. Nevertheless, these effects can be disentangled, illustrating how the sum rule can also be used to search for new physics.

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arXiv2025

Sensitivity of Hyper-Kamiokande to sub-eV Sterile Neutrinos

In this work, we investigate the sensitivity of Hyper-Kamiokande (Hyper-K) to light sterile neutrinos within the $(3+1)$ framework, consisting of three active and one sterile neutrino state. We focus on the regime where the new mass-squared splitting satisfies $Δm_{41}^{2} \lesssim 1$ eV$^{2}$, a parameter space complementary to short-baseline sterile-neutrino searches. Using both accelerator and atmospheric neutrino samples, we evaluate the expected capability of Hyper-K to constrain active-sterile mixing. Our results show that Hyper-K can significantly improve current bounds on sterile-neutrino parameters and achieve sensitivity that is competitive with that of future dedicated experiments.

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arXiv2025

Impact of unitarity violation on sensitivity of the leptonic CP phase at Hyper-Kamiokande and DUNE

We study the impact of unitarity violation on the sensitivity of the leptonic CP phase, $δ_{CP}$, considering the next generation of long-baseline neutrino experiments, Hyper-Kamiokande and DUNE. By simulating near and far detectors and assuming different scenarios for non-unitarity, we verify how it can affect the sensitivity to measure the $δ_{ CP}$ violating phase. We also probe the capability of these experiments to constrain the non-unitarity parameters and how their capability could be improved if the impact of non-unitarity at both near and the far detectors were properly taken into account. We find that the Hyper-Kamiokande experiment is robust in the presence of non-unitarity mixing, achieving a sensitivity above $5σ$ for our all considered cases. On the other hand, DUNE suffers somewhat more impact due to unitarity violation, reaching a sensitivity below 5$σ$ for some values of $δ_{CP}$. However, depending on the scenario adopted for non-unitarity, DUNE demonstrates robustness in the sensitivity to $δ_{ CP}$ phase.

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arXiv2024

Multi-Calorimetry in Light-based Neutrino Detectors

Neutrino detectors are among the largest photon detection instruments, built to capture scarce photons upon energy deposition. Many discoveries in neutrino physics, including the neutrino itself, are inseparable from the advances in photon detection technology, particularly in photo-sensors and readout electronics, to yield ever higher precision and richer detection information. The measurement of the energy of neutrinos, referred to as calorimetry, can be achieved in two distinct approaches: photon-counting, where single-photon can be counted digitally, and photon-integration, where multi-photons are aggregated and estimated via analogue signals. The energy is pursued today to reach permille level systematics control precision in ever-vast volumes, exemplified by experiments like JUNO. The unprecedented precision brings to the foreground the systematics due to calorimetric response entanglements in energy, position and time that were negligible in the past, thus driving further innovation in calorimetry. This publication describes a novel articulation that detectors can be endowed with multiple photon detection systems. This multi-calorimetry approach opens the notion of dual-calorimetry detector, consisting of both photon-counting and photon-integration systems, as a cost-effective evolution from the single calorimetry setups used over several decades for most experiments so far. The dual-calorimetry design exploits unique response synergies between photon-counting and photon-integration systems, including correlations and cancellations in calorimetric responses, to maximise the mitigation of response entanglements, thereby yielding permille-level high-precision calorimetry.

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arXiv2022

Synergies and Prospects for Early Resolution of the Neutrino Mass Ordering

The measurement of neutrino Mass Ordering (MO) is a fundamental element for the understanding of leptonic flavour sector of the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Its determination relies on the precise measurement of $Δm^2_{31}$ and $Δm^2_{32}$ using either neutrino vacuum oscillations, such as the ones studied by medium baseline reactor experiments, or matter effect modified oscillations such as those manifesting in long-baseline neutrino beams (LB$ν$B) or atmospheric neutrino experiments. Despite existing MO indication today, a fully resolved MO measurement ($\geq$5$σ$) is most likely to await for the next generation of neutrino experiments: JUNO, whose stand-alone sensitivity is $\sim$3$σ$, or LB$ν$B experiments (DUNE and Hyper-Kamiokande). Upcoming atmospheric neutrino experiments are also expected to provide precious information. In this work, we study the possible context for the earliest full MO resolution. A firm resolution is possible even before 2028, exploiting mainly vacuum oscillation, upon the combination of JUNO and the current generation of LB$ν$B experiments (NOvA and T2K). This opportunity is possible thanks to a powerful synergy boosting the overall sensitivity where the sub-percent precision of $Δm^2_{32}$ by LB$ν$B experiments is found to be the leading order term for the MO earliest discovery. We also found that the comparison between matter and vacuum driven oscillation results enables unique discovery potential for physics beyond the Standard Model.

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arXiv2021

Probing neutrino decay scenarios by using the Earth matter effects on supernova neutrinos

The observation of Earth matter effects in the spectrum of neutrinos coming from a next galactic core-collapse supernova (CCSN) could, in principle, reveal if neutrino mass ordering is normal or inverted. One of the possible ways to identify the mass ordering is through the observation of the modulations that appear in the spectrum when neutrinos travel through the Earth before they arrive at the detector. These features in the neutrino spectrum depend on two factors, the average neutrino energies, and the difference between the primary neutrino fluxes of electron and other flavors produced inside the supernova. However, recent studies indicate that the Earth matter effect for CCSN neutrinos is expected to be rather small and difficult to be observed by currently operating or planned neutrino detectors mainly because of the similarity of average energies and fluxes between electron and other flavors of neutrinos, unless the distance to CCSN is significantly smaller than the typically expected one, $\sim 10$ kpc. Here, we are looking towards the possibility if the non-standard neutrino properties such as decay of neutrinos can enhance the Earth matter effect. In this work we show that invisible neutrino decay can potentially enhance significantly the Earth matter effect for both $ν_e$ and $\barν_e$ channels at the same time for both mass orderings, even if the neutrino spectra between electron and other flavors of neutrinos are very similar, which is a different feature not expected for CCSN neutrinos with standard oscillation without the decay effect.

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arXiv2020

Constraining visible neutrino decay at KamLAND and JUNO

We study visible neutrino decay at the reactor neutrino experiments KamLAND and, JUNO. Assuming the Majoron model of neutrino decay, we obtain constraints on the couplings between Majoron and neutrino as well as on the lifetime/mass of the most massive neutrino state i.e., $τ_{3} / m_{3}$ or $τ_{2} / m_{2}$, respectively, for the normal or the inverted mass orderings. We obtain the constraints on the lifetime $τ_{2} / m_{2} \geq 1.4 \times 10^{-9}~\rm{s/eV}$ in the inverted mass ordering for both KamLAND and JUNO at 90% CL. In the normal ordering in which the bound can be obtained for JUNO only, the constraint is milder than the inverted ordering case, $τ_{3} / m_{3} \geq 1.0 \times 10^{-10}~\rm{s/eV}$ at 90% CL. We find that the dependence of lightest neutrino mass ($=m_{\rm{lightest}}$), $m_1 (m_3)$ for the normal (inverted) mass ordering, on the constraints for the different types of couplings (scalar or pseudo-scalar) is rather strong, but the $m_{\rm{lightest}}$ dependence on the lifetime/mass bound is only modest.

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arXiv2020

Why matter effects matter for JUNO

In this paper we focus on the Earth matter effects for the solar parameter determination by a medium baseline reactor experiment such as JUNO. We derive perturbative expansions for the mixing angles $θ_{12}$ and $θ_{13}$ as well as the $Δm^2_{21}$ and $Δm^2_{31}$ in terms of the matter potential relevant for JUNO. These expansions, up to second order in the matter potential, while simple, allow one to calculate the electron antineutrino survival probability to a precision much better than needed for the JUNO experiment. We use these perturbative expansions to semi-analytically explain and confirm the shift caused by the matter effects on the solar neutrino mixing parameters $θ_{12}$ and $Δm^2_{21}$ which were previously obtained by a purely numerical $χ^2$ analysis. Since these shifts do not satisfy the naive expectations and are significant given the precision that can be achieved by the JUNO experiment, a totally independent cross check using a completely different method is of particular importance. We find that these matter effect shifts do not depend on any of the details of the detector characteristics apart from the baseline and earth mass density between reactor(s) and detector, but do depend on the normalized product of reactor neutrino spectrum times the inverse-beta decay cross-section. The results of this manuscript suggests an alternative analysis method for measuring $\sin^2 θ_{12}$ and $Δm^2_{21}$ in JUNO which would be a useful cross check of the standard analysis and for the understanding of the Wolfenstein matter effect. The explanation of these shifts together with a quantitative understanding, using a semi-analytical method, is the principal purpose of this paper.

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arXiv2019

Non-unitary evolution of neutrinos in matter and the leptonic unitarity test

We present a comprehensive study of the three-active plus $N$ sterile neutrino model as a framework for constraining leptonic unitarity violation induced at energy scales much lower than the electroweak scale. We formulate a perturbation theory with expansion in small unitarity violating matrix element $W$ while keeping (non-$W$ suppressed) matter effect to all orders. We show that under the same condition of sterile state masses $0.1\, \text{eV}^2 \lesssim m^2_{J} \lesssim (1-10)\, \text{GeV}^2$ as in vacuum, assuming typical accelerator based long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment, one can derive a very simple form of the oscillation probability which consists only of zeroth-order terms with the unique exception of probability leaking term $\mathcal{C}_{αβ}$ of $\mathcal{O} (W^4)$. We argue, based on our explicit computation to fourth-order in $W$, that all the other terms are negligibly small after taking into account the suppression due to the mass condition for sterile states, rendering the oscillation probability {\em sterile-sector model independent}. Then, we identify a limited energy region in which this suppression is evaded and the effects of order $W^2$ corrections may be observable. Its detection would provide another way, in addition to detecting $\mathcal{C}_{αβ}$, to distinguish between low-scale and high-scale unitarity violation. We also solve analytically the zeroth-order system in matter with uniform density to provide a basis for numerical evaluation of non-unitary neutrino evolution.

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arXiv2018

On the robustness of IceCube's bound on sterile neutrinos in the presence of non-standard interactions

The mixing parameters of sterile neutrino(s) preferred by the MiniBooNE and LNSD experiments are in strong tension with the exclusion limit from the IceCube experiment. Recently it has been claimed that by considering the non-standard neutrino interactions (NSI) in addition to the sterile neutrino, the IceCube's limit can be relaxed and the tension can be reconciled; a baroque scenario as it has been called. We will show that this claim is just an artifact originating from the energy cuts of the chosen datasets. Contrary to the claim, by turning on the NSI and fixing the NSI parameters to the proposed values, not only the IceCube's limit on sterile neutrino cannot be alleviated, but in fact the tension will be aggravated. The reconciliation, more appropriately, can be called surreal.

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arXiv2018

Neutrino-Antineutrino Identification in a Liquid Scintillator Detector: Towards a Novel Decay-at-Rest-based Neutrino CPV Framework

We introduce a novel approach to investigate CP violation in the neutrino sector, based on the simultaneous detection of $ν_e$ and $\barν_e$ stemming from the oscillation of $ν_μ$ and $\barν_μ$ produced in the decay at rest of $π$s and $μ$s at a beam dump. This approach relies on a novel liquid scintillator detector technology expected to yield unprecedented identification of $ν_e$ and $\barν_e$ charged-current interactions, which we investigate by means of Montecarlo simulations. Here we report preliminary results concerning both the detection technique and its physics reach.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2018

Decoherence in neutrino propagation through matter, and bounds from IceCube/DeepCore

We revisit neutrino oscillations in matter considering the open quantum system framework which allows to introduce possible decoherence effects generated by New Physics in a phenomenological manner. We assume that the decoherence parameters $γ_{ij}$ may depend on the neutrino energy, as $γ_{ij}=γ_{ij}^{0}(E/\text{GeV})^n$ $(n = 0,\pm1,\pm2) $. The case of non-uniform matter is studied in detail, both within the adiabatic approximation and in the more general non-adiabatic case. In particular, we develop a consistent formalism to study the non-adiabatic case dividing the matter profile into an arbitrary number of layers of constant densities. This formalism is then applied to explore the sensitivity of IceCube and DeepCore to this type of effects. Our study is the first atmospheric neutrino analysis where a consistent treatment of the matter effects in the three-neutrino case is performed in presence of decoherence. We show that matter effects are indeed extremely relevant in this context. We find that IceCube is able to considerably improve over current bounds in the solar sector ($γ_{21}$) and in the atmospheric sector ($γ_{31}$ and $γ_{32}$) for $n=0,1,2$ and, in particular, by several orders of magnitude (between 3 and 9) for the $n=1,2$ cases. For $n=0$ we find $γ_{32},γ_{31}< 4.0\cdot10^{-24} (1.3\cdot10^{-24})$ GeV and $γ_{21}<1.3\cdot10^{-24} (4.1\cdot10^{-24})$ GeV, for normal (inverted) mass ordering.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

A framework for testing leptonic unitarity by neutrino oscillation experiments

If leptonic unitarity is violated by new physics at an energy scale much lower than the electroweak scale, which we call low-scale unitarity violation, it has different characteristic features from those expected in unitarity violation at high-energy scales. They include maintaining flavor universality and absence of zero-distance flavor transition. We present a framework for testing such unitarity violation at low energies by neutrino oscillation experiments. Starting from the unitary 3 active plus $N$ (arbitrary integer) sterile neutrino model we show that by restricting the active-sterile and sterile-sterile neutrino mass squared differences to $\gtrsim$ 0.1 eV$^2$ the oscillation probability in the $(3+N)$ model becomes insensitive to details of the sterile sector, providing a nearly model-independent framework for testing low-scale unitarity violation. Yet, the presence of the sterile sector leaves trace as a constant probability leaking term, which distinguishes low-scale unitarity violation from the high-scale one. The non-unitary mixing matrix in the active neutrino subspace is common for the both cases. We analyze how severely the unitarity violation can be constrained in $ν_{e}$-row by taking a JUNO-like setting to simulate medium baseline reactor experiments. Possible modification of the features of the $(3+N)$ model due to matter effect is discussed to first order in the matter potential.

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arXiv2016

How Unequal Fluxes of High Energy Astrophysical Neutrinos and Antineutrinos can Fake New Physics

Flavor ratios of very high energy astrophysical neutrinos, which can be studied at the Earth by a neutrino telescope such as IceCube, can serve to diagnose their production mechanism at the astrophysical source. The flavor ratios for neutrinos and antineutrinos can be quite different as we do not know how they are produced in the astrophysical environment. Due to this uncertainty the neutrino and antineutrino flavor ratios at the Earth also could be quite different. Nonetheless, it is generally assumed that flavor ratios for neutrinos and antineutrinos are the same at the Earth, in fitting the high energy astrophysical neutrino data. This is a reasonable assumption for the limited statistics for the data we currently have. However, in the future the fit must be performed allowing for a possible discrepancy in these two fractions in order to be able to disentangle different production mechanisms at the source from new physics in the neutrino sector. To reinforce this issue, in this work we show that a wrong assumption about the distribution of neutrino flavor ratios at the Earth may indeed lead to misleading interpretations of IceCube results.

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arXiv2015

Constraint on Neutrino Decay with Medium-Baseline Reactor Neutrino Oscillation Experiments

The experimental bound on lifetime of nu_3, the neutrino mass eigenstate with the smallest nu_e component, is much weaker than those of nu_1 and nu_2 by many orders of magnitude to which the astrophysical constraints apply. We argue that the future reactor neutrino oscillation experiments with medium-baseline (~ 50 km), such as JUNO or RENO-50, has the best chance of placing the most stringent constraint on nu_3 lifetime among all neutrino experiments which utilize the artificial source neutrinos. Assuming decay into invisible states, we show by a detailed chi^2 analysis that the nu_3 lifetime divided by its mass, tau_3/m_3, can be constrained to be tau_3/m_3 > 7.5 (5.5) x 10^{-11} s/eV at 95% (99%) C.L. by 100 kt.years exposure by JUNO. It may be further improved to the level comparable to the atmospheric neutrino bound by its longer run. We also discuss to what extent nu_3 decay affects mass-ordering determination and precision measurements of the mixing parameters.

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arXiv2015

Constraining Majorana CP Phase in Precision Era of Cosmology and Double Beta Decay Experiment

We show that precision measurement of (1) sum of neutrino masses by cosmological observation and (2) lifetime of neutrinoless double beta decay in ton-scale experiments, with supplementary use of (3) effective mass measured in single beta decay experiment, would allow us to obtain information on the Majorana phase of neutrinos. To quantify the sensitivity to the phase we use the CP exclusion fraction, a fraction of the CP phase parameter space that can be excluded for a given set of assumed input parameters, a global measure for CP violation. We illustrate the sensitivity under varying assumptions, from modest to optimistic ones, on experimental errors and theoretical uncertainty of nuclear matrix elements. Assuming that the latter can be reduced to a factor of ~1.5 we find that one of the two Majorana phases (denoted as alpha_(21)) can be constrained by excluding ~10-40% of the phase space at 2sigma CL even with the modest choice of experimental error for the lowest neutrino mass of 0.1 eV. The characteristic features of the sensitivity to alpha_(21), such as dependences on the true values of alpha_(21), are addressed.

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