arXiv subjects

Ninetta Saviano

Publications and source records attributed to Ninetta Saviano.

35 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Observable features in (ultra)high energy neutrinos due to active-sterile secret interactions

We consider the effects of active-sterile secret neutrino interactions, mediated by a new pseudoscalar particle, on high- and ultra high-energy neutrino fluxes. In particular, we focus on the case of 3 active and 1 sterile neutrino coupled by a flavor dependent interaction, extending the case of 1 active and 1 sterile neutrino we have recently examined. We find that, depending on the kind of interaction of sterile neutrino with the active sector, new regions of the parameter space for secret interactions are now allowed leading to interesting phenomenological implications on two benchmark fluxes we consider, namely an astrophysical power law flux, in the range below 100 PeV, and a cosmogenic flux, in the Ultrahigh energy range. First of all, the final active fluxes can present a measurable depletion observable in future experiments. Especially, in the case of only tau neutrino interacting, we find that the effects on the astrophysical power law flux can be so large to be already probed by the IceCube experiment. Moreover, we find intriguing features in the energy dependence of the flavor ratio.

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arXiv2020

Cosmogenic neutrino fluxes under the effect of active-sterile secret interactions

Ultra High Energy cosmogenic neutrinos may represent a unique opportunity to unveil possible new physics interactions once restricted to the neutrino sector only. In the present paper we study the observable effects of a secret active-sterile interactions, mediated by a pseudoscalar, on the expected flux of cosmogenic neutrinos. The results show that for masses of sterile neutrinos and pseudoscalars of hundreds MeV, necessary to evade cosmological, astrophysical and elementary particle constraints, the presence of such new interactions can significantly change the energy spectrum of cosmogenic neutrinos at Earth in the energy range from PeV to ZeV. Interestingly, the distortion of the spectrum results to be detectable at GRAND apparatus if the scalar mediator mass is around 250 MeV and the UHECRs are dominated by the proton component. Larger mediator masses or a chemical composition of UHECRs dominated by heavier nuclei would require much larger cosmic rays apparatus which might be available in future.

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arXiv2018

Sterile Neutrinos with Secret Interactions -- Cosmological Discord?

Several long-standing anomalies from short-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments -- most recently corroborated by new data from MiniBooNE -- have led to the hypothesis that extra, 'sterile', neutrino species might exist. Models of this type face severe cosmological constraints, and several ideas have been proposed to avoid these constraints. Among the most widely discussed ones are models with so-called 'secret interactions' in the neutrino sector. In these models, sterile neutrinos are hypothesized to couple to a new interaction, which dynamically suppresses their production in the early Universe through finite-temperature effects. Recently, it has been argued that the original calculations demonstrating the viability of this scenario need to be refined. Here, we update our earlier results from arXiv:1310.6337 [JCAP 1510 (2015) no.10, 011] accordingly. We confirm that much of the previously open parameter space for secret interactions is in fact ruled out by cosmological constraints on the sum of neutrino masses and on free-streaming of active neutrinos. We then discuss possible modifications of the vanilla scenario that would reconcile sterile neutrinos with cosmology.

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arXiv2017

Cosmic microwave background constraints on secret interactions among sterile neutrinos

Secret contact interactions among eV sterile neutrinos, mediated by a massive gauge boson $X$ (with $M_X \ll M_W$), and characterized by a gauge coupling $g_X$, have been proposed as a mean to reconcile cosmological observations and short-baseline laboratory anomalies. We constrain this scenario using the latest Planck data on Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropies, and measurements of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO). We consistently include the effect of secret interactions on cosmological perturbations, namely the increased density and pressure fluctuations in the neutrino fluid, and still find a severe tension between the secret interaction framework and cosmology. In fact, taking into account neutrino scattering via secret interactions, we derive our own mass bound on sterile neutrinos and find (at 95% CL) $m_s < 0.82$ eV or $m_s < 0.29$ eV from Planck alone or in combination with BAO, respectively. These limits confirm the discrepancy with the laboratory anomalies. Moreover, we constrain, in the limit of contact interaction, the effective strength $G_X$ to be $ < 2.8 (2.0) \times 10^{10}\,G_F$ from Planck (Planck+BAO). This result, together with the mass bound, strongly disfavours the region with $M_X \sim 0.1$ MeV and relatively large coupling $g_X\sim 10^{-1}$, previously indicated as a possible solution to the small scale dark matter problem.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2016

Supernova Neutrinos: Production, Oscillations and Detection

Neutrinos play a crucial role in the collapse and explosion of massive stars, governing the infall dynamics of the stellar core, triggering and fueling the explosion and driving the cooling and deleptonization of the newly formed neutron star. Due to their role neutrinos carry information from the heart of the explosion and, due to their weakly interacting nature, offer the only direct probe of the dynamics and thermodynamics at the center of a supernova. In this paper, we review the present status of modelling the neutrino physics and signal formation in collapsing and exploding stars. We assess the capability of current and planned large underground neutrino detectors to yield faithful information of the time and flavor dependent neutrino signal from a future Galactic supernova. We show how the observable neutrino burst would provide a benchmark for fundamental supernova physics with unprecedented richness of detail. Exploiting the treasure of the measured neutrino events requires a careful discrimination of source-generated properties from signal features that originate on the way to the detector. As for the latter, we discuss self-induced flavor conversions associated with neutrino-neutrino interactions that occur in the deepest stellar regions; matter effects that modify the pattern of flavor conversions in the dynamical stellar envelope; neutrino-oscillation signatures that result from structural features associated with the shock-wave propagation as well as turbulent mass motions in post-shock layers. Finally, we highlight our current understanding of the formation of the diffuse supernova neutrino background and we analyse the perspectives for a detection of this relic signal that integrates the contributions from all past core-collapse supernovae in the Universe.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

Self-induced flavor instabilities of a dense neutrino stream in a two-dimensional model

We consider a simplifed model for self-induced flavor conversions of a dense neutrino gas in two dimensions, showing new solutions that spontaneously break the spatial symmetries of the initial conditions. As a result of the symmetry breaking induced by the neutrino-neutrino interactions, the coherent behavior of the neutrino gas becomes unstable. This instability produces large spatial variations in the flavor content of the ensemble. Furthermore, it also leads to the creation of domains of different net lepton number flux. The transition of the neutrino gas from a coherent to incoherent behavior shows an intriguing analogy with a streaming flow changing from laminar to turbulent regime. These finding would be relevant for the self-induced conversions of neutrinos streaming-off a supernova core.

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arXiv2014

Collisional production of sterile neutrinos via secret interactions and cosmological implications

Secret interactions among sterile neutrinos have been recently proposed as an escape-route to reconcile eV sterile neutrino hints from short-baseline anomalies with cosmological observations. In particular models with coupling g_X \gtrsim 10^{-2} and gauge boson mediators $X$ with $M_X \lesssim 10$ MeV lead to large matter potential suppressing the sterile neutrino production before the neutrino decoupling. With this choice of parameter ranges, big bang nucleosynthesis is left unchanged and gives no bound on the model. However, we show that at lower temperatures when active-sterile oscillations are no longer matter suppressed, sterile neutrinos are still in a collisional regime, due to their secret self-interactions. The interplay between vacuum oscillations and collisions leads to a scattering-induced decoherent production of sterile neutrinos with a fast rate. This process is responsible for a flavor equilibration among the different neutrino species. We explore the effect of this large sterile neutrino population on cosmological observables. We find that a signature of strong secret interactions would be a reduction of the effective number of neutrinos $N_{\rm eff}$ at matter radiation equality down to 2.7. Moreover, for $M_X \gtrsim g_X$ MeV sterile neutrinos would be free-streaming before becoming non-relativistic and they would affect the large-scale structure power spectrum. As a consequence, for this range of parameters we find a tension of a eV mass sterile state with cosmological neutrino mass bounds.

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arXiv2014

Unveiling secret interactions among sterile neutrinos with big-bang nucleosynthesis

Short-baseline neutrino anomalies suggest the existence of low-mass ( m \sim O(1)~eV) sterile neutrinos ν_s. These would be efficiently produced in the early universe by oscillations with active neutrino species, leading to a thermal population of the sterile states seemingly incompatible with cosmological observations. In order to relieve this tension it has been recently speculated that new "secret" interactions among sterile neutrinos, mediated by a massive gauge boson X (with M_X << M_W), can inhibit or suppress the sterile neutrino thermalization, due to the production of a large matter potential term. We note however, that they also generate strong collisional terms in the sterile neutrino sector that induce an efficient sterile neutrino production after a resonance in matter is encountered, increasing their contribution to the number of relativistic particle species N_ eff. Moreover, for values of the parameters of the ν_s-ν_s interaction for which the resonance takes place at temperature T\lesssim few MeV, significant distortions are produced in the electron (anti)neutrino spectra, altering the abundance of light element in Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN). Using the present determination of $^4$He and deuterium primordial abundances we determine the BBN constraints on the model parameters. We find that $^2$H/H density ratio exclude much of the parameter space if one assume a baryon density at the best fit value of Planck experiment, Ω_B h^2= 0.02207, while bounds become weaker for a higher Ω_B h^2=0.02261, the 95 % C.L. upper bound of Planck. Due to the large error on its experimental determination, the helium mass fraction Y_p gives no significant bounds.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Suppression of the multi-azimuthal-angle instability in dense neutrino gas during supernova accretion phase

It has been recently pointed out that removing the axial symmetry in the "multi-angle effects" associated with the neutrino-neutrino interactions for supernova (SN) neutrinos, a new multi-azimuthal-angle (MAA) instability would arise. In particular, for a flux ordering $F_{ν_e} > F_{\barν_e} > F_{ν_x}$, as expected during the SN accretion phase, this instability occurs in the normal neutrino mass hierarchy. However, during this phase the ordinary matter density can be larger than the neutrino one, suppressing the self-induced conversions. At this regard, we investigate the matter suppression of the MAA effects, performing a linearized stability analysis of the neutrino equations of motion, in the presence of realistic SN density profiles. We compare these results with the numerical solution of the SN neutrino non-linear evolution equations. Assuming axially symmetric distributions of neutrino momenta we find that the large matter term strongly inhibits the MAA effects. In particular, the hindrance becomes stronger including realistic forward-peaked neutrino angular distributions. As a result, in our model for a $10.8$ $M_{\odot}$ iron-core SNe, MAA instability does not trigger any flavor conversion during the accretion phase. Instead, for a $8.8$ $M_{\odot}$ O-Ne-Mg core SN model, with lower matter density profile and less forward-peaked angular distributions, flavor conversions are possible also at early times.

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arXiv2014

Damping the neutrino flavor pendulum by breaking homogeneity

The most general case of self-induced neutrino flavor evolution is described by a set of kinetic equations for a dense neutrino gas evolving both in space and time. Solutions of these equations have been typically worked out assuming that either the time (in the core-collapse supernova environment) or space (in the early universe) homogeneity in the initial conditions is preserved through the evolution. In these cases one can gauge away the homogeneous variable and reduce the dimensionality of the problem. In this paper we investigate if small deviations from an initial postulated homogeneity can be amplified by the interacting neutrino gas, leading to a new flavor instability. To this end, we consider a simple two flavor isotropic neutrino gas evolving in time, and initially composed by only $ν_e$ and $\barν_e$ with equal densities. In the homogeneous case, this system shows a bimodal instability in the inverted mass hierarchy scheme, leading to the well studied flavor pendulum behavior. This would lead to periodic pair conversions $ν_e \barν_e \leftrightarrow ν_x \barν_x$. To break space homogeneity, we introduce small amplitude space-dependent perturbations in the matter potential. By Fourier transforming the equations of motion with respect to the space coordinate, we then numerically solve a set of coupled equations for the different Fourier modes. We find that even for arbitrarily tiny inhomogeneities, the system evolution runs away from the stable pendulum behavior: the different modes are excited and the space-averaged ensemble evolves towards flavor equilibrium. We finally comment on the role of a time decaying neutrino background density in weakening these results.

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arXiv2013

The strongest bounds on active-sterile neutrino mixing after Planck data

Light sterile neutrinos can be excited by oscillations with active neutrinos in the early universe. Their properties can be constrained by their contribution as extra-radiation, parameterized in terms of the effective number of neutrino species N_ eff, and to the universe energy density today Ω_νh^2. Both these parameters have been measured to quite a good precision by the Planck satellite experiment. We use this result to update the bounds on the parameter space of (3+1) sterile neutrino scenarios, with an active-sterile neutrino mass squared splitting in the range (10^{-5} - 10^2 ) eV^2. We consider both normal and inverted mass orderings for the active and sterile states. For the first time we take into account the possibility of two non-vanishing active-sterile mixing angles. We find that the bounds are more stringent than those obtained in laboratory experiments. This leads to a strong tension with the short-baseline hints of light sterile neutrinos. In order to relieve this disagreement, modifications of the standard cosmological scenario, e.g. large primordial neutrino asymmetries, are required.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2013

Multi-momentum and multi-flavour active-sterile neutrino oscillations in the early universe: role of neutrino asymmetries and effects on nucleosynthesis

We perform a study of the flavour evolution in the early universe of a multi-flavour active-sterile neutrino system with parameters inspired by the short-baseline neutrino anomalies. In a neutrino-symmetric bath a "thermal" population of the sterile state would quickly grow, but in the presence of primordial neutrino asymmetries a self-suppression as well as a resonant sterile neutrino production can take place, depending on temperature and chosen parameters. In order to characterize these effects, we go beyond the usual average momentum and single mixing approximations and consider a multi-momentum and multi-flavour treatment of the kinetic equations. We find that the enhancement obtained in this case with respect to the average momentum approximation is significant, up to \sim 20 % of a degree of freedom. Such detailed and computationally demanding treatment further raises the asymmetry values required to significantly suppress the sterile neutrino production, up to large and preferentially net asymmetries |L_ν| > O(10^{-2}). For such asymmetries, however, the active-sterile flavour conversions happen so late that significant distortions are produced in the electron (anti)neutrino spectra. The larger |L_ν|, the more the impact of these distortions takes over as dominant cosmological effect, notably increasing the 4 He abundance in primordial nucleosynthesis (BBN). The standard expression of the primordial yields in terms of the effective number of neutrinos and asymmetries is also greatly altered. We numerically estimate the magnitude of such effects for a few representative cases and comment on possible implications for forthcoming cosmological measurements.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2012

Light sterile neutrino production in the early universe with dynamical neutrino asymmetries

Light sterile neutrinos mixing with the active ones have been recently proposed to solve different anomalies observed in short-baseline oscillation experiments. These neutrinos can also be produced by oscillations of the active neutrinos in the early universe, leaving possible traces on different cosmological observables. Here we perform an updated study of the neutrino kinetic equations in (3+1) and (2+1) oscillation schemes, dynamically evolving primordial asymmetries of active neutrinos and taking into account for the first time CP-violation effects. In the absence of neutrino asymmetries, eV-mass scale sterile neutrinos would be completely thermalized creating a tension with respect to the CMB, LSS and BBN data. In the past literature, active neutrino asymmetries have been invoked as a way to inhibit the sterile neutrino production via the in-medium suppression of the sterile-active mixing angle. However, neutrino asymmetries also permit a resonant sterile neutrino production. We find that if the active species have equal asymmetries L, a value |L|=10^{-3} is required to start suppressing the resonant sterile production, roughly an order of magnitude larger than what previously expected. When active species have opposite asymmetries the sterile abundance is further enhanced, requiring an even larger |L|\simeq 10^{-2} to start suppressing their production. In the latter case, CP-violation (naturally expected) further exacerbates the phenomenon. Some consequences for cosmological observables are briefly discussed: for example, it is likely that moderate suppressions of the sterile species production are associated with significant spectral distortions of the active neutrino species, with potentially interesting phenomenological consequences especially for BBN.

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arXiv2012

Stability analysis of collective neutrino oscillations in the supernova accretion phase with realistic energy and angle distributions

We revisit our previous results on the matter suppression of self-induced neutrino flavor conversions during a supernova (SN) accretion phase, performing a linearized stability analysis of the neutrino equations of motion, in the presence of realistic SN density profiles. In our previous numerical study, we used a simplified model based on an isotropic neutrino emission with a single typical energy. Here, we take into account realistic neutrino energy and angle distributions. We find that multi-energy effects have a sub-leading impact in the flavor stability of the SN neutrino fluxes with respect to our previous single-energy results. Conversely, realistic forward-peaked neutrino angular distributions would enhance the matter suppression of the self-induced oscillations with respect to an isotropic neutrino emission. As a result, in our models for iron-core SNe, collective flavor conversions have a negligible impact on the characterization of the observable neutrino signal during the accretion phase. Instead, for a low-mass O-Ne-Mg core SN model, with lower matter density profile and less forward-peaked angular distributions, collective conversions are possible also at early times.

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arXiv2011

No collective neutrino flavor conversions during the supernova accretion phase

The large neutrino fluxes emitted with a distinct flavor hierarchy from core-collapse supernovae (SNe) during the post-bounce accretion phase, offer the best opportunity to detect effects from neutrino flavor oscillations. We perform a dedicated study of the SN neutrino flavor evolution during the accretion phase, using results from recent neutrino radiation hydrodynamics simulations. In contrast to what expected in the presence of only neutrino-neutrino interactions, we find that the multi-angle effects associated with the dense ordinary matter suppress collective oscillations. This is related to the high matter densities during the accretion phase in core-collapse SNe of massive iron-core progenitors. The matter suppression implies that neutrino oscillations will start outside the neutrino transport region and therefore will have a negligible impact on the neutrino heating and the explosion dynamics. Furthermore, the possible detection of the next galactic SN neutrino signal from the accretion phase, based on the usual Mikheyev- Smirnov-Wolfenstein effect in the SN mantle and Earth matter effects, can reveal the neutrino mass hierarchy in the case that the mixing angle $θ_{13}$ is not very small.

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arXiv2011

Coarse-Grained Cosmological Perturbation Theory

Semi-analytical methods, based on Eulerian perturbation theory, are a promising tool to follow the time evolution of cosmological perturbations at small redshifts and at mildly nonlinear scales. All these schemes are based on two approximations: the existence of a smoothing scale and the single-stream approximation, where velocity dispersion of the dark matter fluid, as well as higher moments of the particle distributions, are neglected. Despite being widely recognized, these two assumptions are, in principle, incompatible, since any finite smoothing scale gives rise to velocity dispersion and higher moments at larger scales. We describe a new approach to perturbation theory, where the Vlasov and fluid equations are derived in presence of a finite coarse-graining scale: this allows a clear separation between long and short distance modes and leads to a hybrid approach where the former are treated perturbatively and the effect of the latter is encoded in external source terms for velocity, velocity dispersion, and all the higher order moments, which can be computed from N-body simulations. We apply the coarse-grained perturbation theory to the computation of the power spectrum and the cross-spectrum between density and velocity dispersion, and compare the results with N-body simulations, finding good agreement.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2011

Analysis of matter suppression in collective neutrino oscillations during the supernova accretion phase

The usual description of self-induced neutrino flavor conversions in core collapse supernovae (SNe) is based on the dominance of the neutrino density n_nu over the net electron density n_e. However, this condition is not met during the post-bounce accretion phase, when the dense matter in a SN is piled up above the neutrinosphere. As recently pointed-out, a dominant matter term in the anisotropic SN environment would dephase the flavor evolution for neutrinos traveling on different trajectories, challenging the occurrence of the collective behavior in the dense neutrino gas. Using the results from recent long term simulations of core-collapse SN explosions, based on three flavor Boltzmann neutrino transport in spherical symmetry, we find that both the situations of complete matter suppression (when n_e >> n_nu) and matter-induced decoherence (when n_e \gtrsim n_nu) of flavor conversions are realized during the accretion phase. The matter suppression at high densities prevents any possible impact of the neutrino oscillations on the neutrino heating and hence on the dynamics of the explosion. Furthermore, it changes the interpretation of the Earth matter effect on the SN neutrino signal during the accretion phase, allowing the possibility of the neutrino mass hierarchy discrimination at not too small values of the leptonic mixing angle θ_{13} (i.e. \sin^2θ_{13} \gtrsim 10^{-3}).

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