arXiv subjects

Mary Hall Reno

Publications and source records attributed to Mary Hall Reno.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

Neutrino constraints on long-lived heavy dark sector particle decays in the Earth

Recent theoretical work has explored dark matter accumulation in the Earth and its drift towards the center of the Earth that, for the current age of the Earth, does not necessarily result in a concentration of dark matter ($χ$) in the Earth's core. We consider a scenario of long-lived ($τ_χ\sim 10^{28}$ s), super heavy ($m_χ=10^7-10^{10}$ GeV) dark matter that decays via $χ\to ν_τ\barν_τ$ or $χ\to ν_μ\barν_μ$. We show that an IceCube-like detector over 10 years can constrain a dark matter density that mirrors the Earth's density or has a uniform density with density fraction $ε_ρ$ combined with the partial decay width $B_{χ\to ν_τ\barν_τ}Γ_χ$ in the range of $(ε_ρ/10^{-10}) B_{χ\to ν_τ}Γ_χ\lesssim 1.5\times 10^{-29}-1.5\times 10^{-28}$ s$^{-1}$. For $χ\to ν_μ\barν_μ$, $m_χ= 10^8-10^{10}$ GeV and $E_μ>10^7$ GeV, the range of constraints is $(ε_ρ/10^{-10}) B_{χ\to ν_μ}Γ_χ\lesssim 3\times 10^{-29}-7\times 10^{-28}$ s$^{-1}$.

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arXiv2021

Probing the properties of superheavy dark matter annihilating or decaying into neutrinos with ultra-high energy neutrino experiments

The evidence for dark matter particles, $χ$, is compelling based on Galactic to cosmological scale observations. Thus far, the promising weakly interacting massive particle scenario have eluded detection, motivating alternative models of dark matter. We consider scenarios involving superheavy dark matter (SHDM) that potentially can decay or annihilate to neutrinos and antineutrinos. In the mass range $m_χ=10^7-10^{15}\,{\rm GeV}$, we evaluate the sensitivities of future observatories POEMMA and GRAND for indirect dark matter detection via the measurement of neutrino-induced extensive air showers (EAS), compute the Auger and ANITA limits using their last up-to-date sensitivities, and compare them with IceCube limits. We also show that the uncertainties related to the dark matter distribution in the Galactic halo have a large impact on the neutrino flux. We show that a ground-based radio detector such as GRAND can achieve high sensitivities due to its large effective area and high duty cycle. Space-based Cherenkov detectors such as POEMMA that measure the EAS optical Cherenkov signal have the advantage of full-sky coverage and rapid slewing, enabling an optimized SHDM observation strategy focusing on the Galactic Center. We show that increasing the field of view of the Cherenkov detectors can significantly enhance the sensitivity. Moreover, POEMMA's fluorescence observation mode that measures EAS above $20\,$EeV will achieve state-of-the-art sensitivity to SHDM properties at the highest mass scales.

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arXiv2021

Monte Carlo simulations of neutrino and charged lepton propagation in the Earth with nuPyProp

An accurate modeling of neutrino flux attenuation and the distribution of leptons they produce in transit through the Earth is an essential component to determine neutrino flux sensitivities of underground, sub-orbital and space-based detectors. Through neutrino oscillations over cosmic distances, astrophysical neutrino sources are expected to produce nearly equal fluxes of electron, muon and tau neutrinos. Of particular interest are tau neutrinos that interact in the Earth at modest slant depths to produce $τ$-leptons. Some $τ$-leptons emerge from the Earth and decay in the atmosphere to produce extensive air showers. Future balloon-borne and satellite-based optical Cherenkov neutrino telescopes will be sensitive to upward air showers from tau neutrino induced $τ$-lepton decays. We present nuPyProp, a python code that is part of the nuSpaceSim package. nuPyProp generates look-up tables for exit probabilities and energy distributions for $ν_τ\to τ$ and $ν_μ\to μ$ propagation in the Earth. This flexible code runs with either stochastic or continuous electromagnetic energy losses for the lepton transit through the Earth. Current neutrino cross section models and energy loss models are included along with templates for user input of other models. Results from nuPyProp are compared with other recent simulation packages for neutrino and charged lepton propagation. Sources of modeling uncertainties are described and quantified.

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arXiv2021

Indirect dark matter searches at ultrahigh energy neutrino detectors

High to ultrahigh energy neutrino detectors can uniquely probe the properties of dark matter $χ$ by searching for the secondary products produced through annihilation and/or decay processes. We evaluate the sensitivities to dark matter thermally averaged annihilation cross section $\langleσv\rangle$ and partial decay width into neutrinos $Γ_{χ\rightarrowν\barν}$ (in the mass scale $10^7 \leq m_χ/{\rm GeV} \leq 10^{15}$) for next generation observatories like POEMMA and GRAND. We show that in the range $ 10^7 \leq m_χ/{\rm GeV} \leq 10^{11}$, space-based Cherenkov detectors like POEMMA have the advantage of full-sky coverage and rapid slewing, enabling an optimized dark matter observation strategy focusing on the Galactic center. We also show that ground-based radio detectors such as GRAND can achieve high sensitivities and high duty cycles in radio quiet areas. We compare the sensitivities of next generation neutrino experiments with existing constraints from IceCube and updated 90\% C.L. upper limits on $\langleσv\rangle$ and $Γ_{χ\rightarrowν\barν}$ using results from the Pierre Auger Collaboration and ANITA. We show that in the range $ 10^7 \leq m_χ/{\rm GeV} \leq 10^{11}$ POEMMA and GRAND10k will improve the neutrino sensitivity to particle dark matter by factors of 2 to 10 over existing limits, whereas GRAND200k will improve this sensitivity by two orders of magnitude. In the range $10^{11} \leq m_χ/{\rm GeV} \leq 10^{15}$, POEMMA's fluorescence observation mode will achieve an unprecedented sensitivity to dark matter properties. Finally, we highlight the importance of the uncertainties related to the dark matter distribution in the Galactic halo, using the latest fit and estimates of the Galactic parameters.

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arXiv2021

Neutrinos from charm: forward production at the LHC and in the atmosphere

Theoretical predictions of the prompt atmospheric neutrino flux have large uncertainties associated with charm hadron production, by far the dominant source of prompt neutrinos in the atmosphere. The flux of cosmic rays, with its steeply falling energy spectrum, weights the forward production of charm in the evaluation of the atmospheric neutrino flux at high energies. The current LHCb experiment at CERN constrains charm production in kinematic regions relevant to the prompt atmospheric neutrino flux. The proposed Forward Physics Facility has additional capabilities to detect neutrino fluxes from forward charm production at the LHC. We discuss the implications of the current and planned experiments on the development of theoretical predictions of the high energy atmospheric neutrino flux.

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arXiv2021

Oscillations of sterile neutrinos from dark matter decay eliminates the IceCube-Fermi tension

IceCube has observed a flux of cosmic neutrinos, with a "bump" in the energy range $10 \lesssim E/{\rm TeV} \lesssim 100$ that creates a $3σ$ tension with gamma-ray data from the Fermi satellite. This has been interpreted as evidence for a population of hidden cosmic-ray accelerators. We propose an alternative explanation of this conundrum on the basis of cold dark matter which decays into sterile neutrinos that after oscillations produce the bump in the cosmic neutrino spectrum.

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arXiv2021

Prospects for macroscopic dark matter detection at space-based and suborbital experiments

We compare two different formalisms for modeling the energy deposition of macroscopically sized/massive quark nuggets (a.k.a. macros) in the Earth's atmosphere. We show that for a reference mass of 1 g, there is a discrepancy in the macro luminosity of about 14 orders of magnitude between the predictions of the two formalisms. Armed with our finding we estimate the sensitivity for macro detection at space-based (Mini-EUSO and POEMMA) and suborbital (EUSO-SPB2) experiments.

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arXiv2020

Perturbative Charm Production and the Prompt Atmospheric Neutrino Flux in light of RHIC and LHC

Prompt neutrinos due to the decay of charmed mesons produced in the atmosphere from cosmic-ray and atmospheric nuclei interactions may be a significant source of background to ultra-high energy neutrino searches above 10 TeV. We re-evaluate this flux using updated charm production cross-sections based on QCD parameters, the charm quark mass, and the range for the factorization and renormalization scales that provide the best description of this data at fixed target experiments, at RHIC, and at LHC. We find that the prompt neutrino flux is reduced from previous results in the literature by a factor between two and eight, depending on the energy. We discuss the implications of our results for current IceCube data.

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arXiv2020

Probing secret interactions of eV-scale sterile neutrinos with the diffuse supernova neutrino background

While three flavors of "active" neutrinos are consistent with mixing angle results within error bars, there are anomalies may be hints of physics beyond the standard model that can accommodate a fourth mostly "sterile" neutrino species with an eV-scale mass and a mixing angle with active neutrinos of order $θ_0\simeq 0.1$. We describe a scenario with eV-scale sterile neutrinos that have self-interactions via a new gauge vector boson, a "secret" mediator $ϕ$. We show that their production in the early Universe via mixing with active neutrinos is consistent with Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and free-streaming constraints in the Cosmic Microwave Background epoch. For $M_ϕ=4-8$ keV and sterile neutrino coupling $g_s=10^{-4}$, we find that resonant interactions of diffuse supernova neutrinos with relic sterile neutrinos in transit to the Earth would cause spectral dips in the neutrino flux. We illustrate the corresponding (anti-)neutrino event distributions as a function of energy in the DUNE (Hyper-Kamiokande) detector.

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arXiv2020

Charm contribution to ultrahigh-energy neutrinos from newborn magnetars

Newborn, strongly magnetized neutron stars (so-called magnetars) surrounded by their stellar or merger ejecta are expected to be sources of ultrahigh-energy neutrinos via decay of mesons produced in hadronic interactions of protons which are accelerated to ultrahigh energies by magnetic dissipation of the spindown energy. We show that not only pions and kaons but also charm hadrons, which are typically neglected due to their small production cross sections, can represent dominant contributions to neutrino fluence at ultrahigh energies, because of their short lifetimes, while the ultrahigh-energy neutrino fluence from pion and kaon production is suppressed at early times due to their significant cooling before their decay. We show that the next-generation detectors such as Probe Of Extreme Multi-Messenger Astrophysics (POEMMA), Giant Radio Array for Neurtino Detection (GRAND) and IceCube-Gen2 have a good chance of observing neutrinos, primarily originating from charm hadrons, from nearby magnetars. We also show that neutrinos from nearby magnetar-driven merger novae could be observed in the time interval between $10^2$ s and $10^3$ s, where the charm hadron contribution is dominant for neutrino energies above $10^8$ GeV, of relevance to next generation detectors. We also comment on potential impacts of the charm hadron contribution to the diffuse neutrino flux.

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arXiv2020

POEMMA's Target of Opportunity Sensitivity to Cosmic Neutrino Transient Sources

We investigate the capability of the Probe Of Extreme Multi-Messenger Astrophysics (POEMMA) in performing Target-of-Opportunity (ToO) neutrino observations. POEMMA will detect tau neutrinos via Cherenkov radiation from their upward-moving extensive air showers. POEMMA will be able to quickly slew ($90^{\circ}$ in 500 s) to the direction of an astrophysical source, which in combination with its orbital speed will provide it with unparalleled capability to follow up transient alerts. We calculate POEMMA's transient sensitivity for two observational modes for its two satellites (ToO-stereo and ToO-dual) and investigate variations in neutrino sensitivity across the sky arising from POEMMA's orbit. We explore separate scenarios for long ($\sim 10^{6}$ s) and short ($\sim 10^3$ s) bursts, accounting for intrusion from the Sun and the Moon in long-duration scenarios. For long bursts, POEMMA will improve the average neutrino sensitivity above 300 PeV by up to a factor of 7 with respect to existing experiments (e.g., IceCube, ANTARES, and Pierre Auger), reaching the level of model predictions for neutrino fluences at these energies from several types of long-duration astrophysical transients (e.g., binary neutron star mergers and tidal disruption events). For short bursts in the optimal case, POEMMA will improve the sensitivity over existing experiments by at least an order of magnitude above 100 PeV. POEMMA's orbit and rapid slewing will provide access to the full celestial sky, including regions not accessible to ground-based experiments. Finally, we discuss the prospects for detecting neutrinos from candidate astrophysical neutrino sources in the nearby universe. Our results demonstrate that with its improved neutrino sensitivity at ultra-high energies and unique full-sky coverage, POEMMA will be an essential component in an expanding multi-messenger network.

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arXiv2020

Radio Detection of Ultra-high Energy Cosmic Rays with Low Lunar Orbiting SmallSats

Ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) are the most energetic particles observed and serve as a probe of the extreme universe. A key question to understanding the violent processes responsible for their acceleration is identifying which classes of astrophysical objects (active galactic nuclei or starburst galaxies, for example) correlate to their arrival directions. While source clustering is limited by deflections in the Galactic magnetic field, at the highest energies the scattering angles are sufficiently low to retain correlation with source catalogues. While there have been several studies attempting to identify source catalogue correlations with data from the Pierre Auger Observatory and the Telescope Array, the significance above an isotropic background has not yet reached the threshold for discovery. It has been known for several decades that a full-sky UHECR observatory would provide a substantial increase in sensitivity to the anisotropic component of UHECRs. There have been several concepts developed in that time targeting the identification of UHECR sources such as OWL, JEM-EUSO, and POEMMA, using fluorescence detection in the Earth's atmosphere from orbit. In this white paper, we present a concept called the Zettavolt Askaryan Polarimeter (ZAP), designed to identify the source of UHECRs using radio detection of the Askaryan radio emissions produced by UHECRs interacting in the Moon's regolith from low lunar orbit.

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arXiv2020

Far-forward neutrinos at the Large Hadron Collider

We present a new calculation of the energy distribution of high-energy neutrinos from the decay of charm and bottom hadrons produced at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In the kinematical region of very forward rapidities, heavy-flavor production and decay is a source of tau neutrinos that leads to thousands of { charged-current} tau neutrino events in a 1 m long, 1 m radius lead neutrino detector at a distance of 480 m from the interaction region. In our computation, next-to-leading order QCD radiative corrections are accounted for in the production cross-sections. Non-perturbative intrinsic-$k_T$ effects are approximated by a simple phenomenological model introducing a Gaussian $k_T$-smearing of the parton distribution functions, which might also mimic perturbative effects due to multiple initial-state soft-gluon emissions. The transition from partonic to hadronic states is described by phenomenological fragmentation functions. To study the effect of various input parameters, theoretical predictions for $D_s^\pm$ production are compared with LHCb data on double-differential cross-sections in transverse momentum and rapidity. The uncertainties related to the choice of the input parameter values, ultimately affecting the predictions of the tau neutrino event distributions, are discussed. We consider a 3+1 neutrino mixing scenario to illustrate the potential for a neutrino experiment to constrain the 3+1 parameter space using tau neutrinos and antineutrinos. We find large theoretical uncertainties in the predictions of the neutrino fluxes in the far-forward region. Untangling the effects of tau neutrino oscillations into sterile neutrinos and distinguishing a 3+1 scenario from the standard scenario with three active neutrino flavours, will be challenging due to the large theoretical uncertainties from QCD.

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arXiv2019

Performance and science reach of POEMMA for ultrahigh-energy particles

The Probe Of Extreme Multi-Messenger Astrophysics (POEMMA) is a potential NASA Astrophysics Probe-class mission designed to observe ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) and cosmic neutrinos from space. POEMMA will monitor colossal volumes of the Earth's atmosphere to detect extensive air showers (EASs) produced by extremely energetic cosmic messengers: UHECRs above 20 EeV over the full sky and cosmic neutrinos above 20 PeV. We focus most of this study on the impact of POEMMA for UHECR science by simulating the detector response and mission performance for EAS from UHECRs. We show that POEMMA will provide a significant increase in the statistics of observed UHECRs at the highest energies over the entire sky. POEMMA will be the first UHECR fluorescence detector deployed in space that will provide high-quality stereoscopic observations of the longitudinal development of air showers. Therefore, it will be able to provide event-by-event estimates of the calorimetric energy and nuclear mass of UHECRs. The particle physics in the interactions limits the interpretation of the shower maximum on an event by event basis. In contrast, the calorimetric energy measurement is significantly less sensitive to the different possible final states in the early interactions. We study the prospects to discover the origin and nature of UHECRs using expectations for measurements of the energy spectrum, the distribution of arrival direction, and the atmospheric column depth at which the EAS longitudinal development reaches maximum. We also explore supplementary science capabilities of POEMMA through its sensitivity to particle interactions at extreme energies and its ability to detect ultra-high energy neutrinos and photons produced by top-down models including cosmic strings and super-heavy dark matter particle decay in the halo of the Milky Way.

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arXiv2019

Cosmic tau neutrino detection via Cherenkov signals from air showers from Earth-emerging taus

We perform a new, detailed calculation of the flux and energy spectrum of Earth-emerging $τ$-leptons generated from the interactions of tau neutrinos and antineutrinos in the Earth. A layered model of the Earth is used to describe the variable density profile of the Earth. Different assumptions regarding the neutrino charged- and neutral-current cross sections as well as the $τ$-lepton energy loss models are used to quantify the systematic uncertainty from these on the results. A baseline simulation is then used to generate the optical Cherenkov signal from upward-moving extensive air showers generated by the $τ$-lepton decay in the atmosphere, applicable to a range of space-based instruments. We use this simulation to determine the neutrino sensitivity for $E_ν>$ 10 PeV for a space-based experiment with performance similar to that for the Probe of Extreme MultiMessenger Astrophysics (POEMMA) mission currently under study.

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arXiv2019

A new calculation of Earth-skimming very- and ultra-high energy tau neutrinos

Cosmic neutrinos above a PeV are produced either within astrophysical sources or when ultra-high energy cosmic rays interact in transit through the cosmic background radiation. Detection of these neutrinos will be essential for understanding cosmic ray acceleration, composition and source evolution. By using the Earth as a tau neutrino converter for upward-going extensive air showers from tau decays, balloon-borne and space-based instruments can take advantage of a large volume and mass of the terrestrial neutrino target. The theoretical inputs and uncertainties in determining the tau lepton exit probabilities and their translation to detection acceptance will be discussed in the context of a new calculation we have performed. We quantify the experimental detection capability based on our calculation, including using the Probe of Extreme Multi-Messenger Astrophysics (POEMMA) concept study response parameters for optical air Cherenkov detection. These case studies are used to illustrate the features and uncertainties in upward tau air shower detection.

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arXiv2019

Anomalous ANITA air shower events and tau decays

Two unusual neutrino events in the Antarctic Impulse Transient Antenna (ANITA) appear to have been generated by air showers from a particle emerging from the Earth at angles 25-35 degrees above the horizon. We evaluate the effective aperture for ANITA with a simplified detection model to illustrate the features of the angular dependence of expected events for incident standard model tau neutrinos and for sterile neutrinos that mix with tau neutrinos. We apply our sterile neutrino aperture results to a dark matter scenario with long-lived supermassive dark matter that decay to sterile neutrino-like particles. We find that for up-going air showers from tau decays, from isotropic fluxes of standard model, sterile neutrinos or other particles that couple to the tau through suppressed weak interaction cross sections cannot be responsible for the unusual events.

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arXiv2019

Prompt neutrinos and intrinsic charm at SHiP

We present a new evaluation of the far-forward neutrino plus antineutrino flux and number of events from charm hadron decays in a 400 GeV proton beam dump experiment like the Search for Hidden Particles (SHiP). Using next-to-leading order perturbative QCD and a model for intrinsic charm, we include intrinsic transverse momentum effects and other kinematic angular corrections. We compare this flux to a far-forward flux evaluated with next-to-leading order perturbative QCD, without intrinsic transverse momentum, that used the angular distribution of charm quarks rather than the neutrinos from their decays. The tau neutrino plus antineutrino number of events in the perturbative QCD evaluation is reduced by a factor of about three when intrinsic transverse momentum and the full decay kinematics are included. We show that intrinsic charm contributions can significantly enhance the number of events from neutrinos from charm hadron decays. Measurements of the number of events from tau neutrino plus antineutrino interactions and of the muon charge asymmetry as a function of energy can be used to constrain intrinsic charm models.

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