arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Mikhail B. Voloshin.
We give a brief outline of possible neutrino electromagnetic characteristics, which can indicate new physics beyond the Standard Model. Special emphasis is put on recent theoretical development in searches for neutrino magnetic moments.
The ionization of atomic electrons by scattering of neutrinos is revisited. This process is the one studied in the experimental searches for a neutrino magnetic moment using germanium detectors. Current experiments are sensitive to the ionization energy comparable with the atomic energies, and the effects of the electron binding should be taken into account. We find that the so-called stepping approximation to the neutrino-impact ionization is in fact exact in the semiclassical limit and also that the deviations from this approximation are very small already for the lowest bound Coulomb states. We also consider the effects of electron-electron correlations and argue that the resulting corrections to the ionization of independent electrons are quite small. In particular we estimate that in germanium these are at a one percent level at the energy transfer down to a fraction of keV. Exact sum rules are also presented as well as analytical results for a few lowest hydrogen-like states.
In the experimental searches for neutrino magnetic moments using germanium detectors one studies the ionization channel in the neutrino-atom scattering. We find that the so-called stepping approximation to the neutrino-impact ionization is exact in the semiclassical limit, and that the deviations from this approximation are very small.
We consider models of light super-weakly interacting cold dark matter, with O(10-100) keV mass, focusing on bosonic candidates such as pseudoscalars and vectors. We analyze the cosmological abundance, the gamma-background created by particle decays, the impact on stellar processes due to cooling, and the direct detection capabilities in order to identify classes of models that pass all the constraints. In certain models, variants of photoelectric (or axioelectric) absorption of dark matter in direct-detection experiments can provide a sensitivity to the superweak couplings to the Standard Model which is superior to all existing indirect constraints. In all models studied, the annual modulation of the direct-detection signal is at the currently unobservable level of O(10^{-5}).
We consider a generic mechanism via which thermal relic WIMP dark matter may be decoupled from the Standard Model, namely through a combination of WIMP annihilation to metastable mediators with subsequent delayed decay to Standard Model states. We illustrate this with explicit examples of WIMPs connected to the Standard Model by metastable bosons or fermions. In all models, provided the WIMP mass is greater than that of the mediator, it can be secluded from the Standard Model with an extremely small elastic scattering cross-section on nuclei and rate for direct collider production. In contrast, indirect signatures from WIMP annihilation are consistent with a weak scale cross-section and provide potentially observable γ-ray signals. We also point out that γ-ray constraints and flavor physics impose severe restrictions on MeV-scale variants of secluded models, and identify limited classes that pass all the observational constraints.