arXiv subjects

Viviana Niro

Publications and source records attributed to Viviana Niro.

18 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2021

Gamma rays and neutrinos from RX J1713.7-3946 in a lepto-hadronic scenario

The gamma-ray emission of RX J1713.7-3946, despite being extensively studied in the GeV and TeV domain, remains poorly understood. This is mostly because in this range, two competing mechanisms can efficiently produce gamma rays: the inverse Compton scattering of accelerated electrons, and interactions of accelerated protons with nuclei of the ISM. In addition to the acceleration of particles from the thermal pool, the reacceleration of pre-existing CRs is often overlooked, and shall in fact also been taken into account. Especially, because of the distance to the SNR ($\sim 1$ kpc), and the low density in which the shock is currently expanding ($\sim 10^{-2}$ cm$^{-3}$), the re-acceleration of CR electrons pre-existing in the ISM, can account for a significant fraction of the observed gamma-ray emission, and contribute to the shaping of the spectrum in the GeV-TeV range. Remarkably, this emission of leptonic origin is found to be close to the level of the gamma-ray signal in the TeV range, provided that the spectrum of pre-exisiting cosmic ray electrons is similar to the one observed in the local interstellar medium. The overall gamma-ray spectrum of RX J1713.7-3946 is naturally produced as the sum of a leptonic emission from reaccelerated CR electrons, and a subdominant hadronic emission from accelerated protons. We also argue that neutrino observations with next-generation detectors might lead to a detection even in the case of a lepto-hadronic origin of the gamma-ray emission.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2020

Detecting the brightest HAWC sources with IceCube in the upcoming years

Among the gamma-ray sources detected by the HAWC observatory, we consider in details in this work the gamma-ray sources eHWC J1907+063 and eHWC J2019+368. These two sources belong to the three most luminous sources detected by HAWC, with emission above 100 TeV. In addition to those, we have considered also a source for which IceCube currently report an excess in neutrinos, the 2HWC J1857+027 source. For these sources, we show the prediction for neutrinos at the IceCube detector. Moreover, we present the calculation of the statistical significance, considering 10 and 20 years of running time, and we comment on the current results reported by the collaboration. We found that a detection at 3$σ$ or more should be within reach of the next decade for the sources eHWC J1907+063 and eHWC J2019+368. Instead, the detection at about 3$σ$ of the 2HWC J1857+027 source will depend on the specific value of the flux, on the extension of the source and on the cut-off energy.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2019

Galaxy rotation curves in modified gravity models

In this work, we investigate the possibility that the galaxy rotation curves can be explained in the framework of modified gravity models that introduce a Yukawa term in the gravitational potential. We include dark matter and assume that the fifth-force couples differently to dark matter and to baryons. We aim at constraining the modified gravity parameters $β$ and $λ$, that is, the strength and the range of the Yukawa fifth force, respectively, using a set of 40 galaxy rotation curves data from the SPARC catalogue. We include baryonic gas, disk and bulge components, along with a NFW halo of dark matter. Each galaxy rotation curve is modeled with three free parameters, beside the two global Yukawa parameter. We find that the inclusion of the Yukawa term improves the $χ^2$ from $680.75$ to $536.23$ for $655$ degrees of freedom. As global best-fit we obtain $β= 0.34\pm0.04$ and $λ= 5.61\pm0.91$kpc and a dark matter content on average 20\% smaller than without the Yukawa term. The Bayesian evidence in favor of a NFW profile plus Yukawa term is higher than 8$σ$ with respect to the standard gravity parametrization.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2017

Dark Matter and the elusive $\mathbf{Z'}$ in a dynamical Inverse Seesaw scenario

The Inverse Seesaw naturally explains the smallness of neutrino masses via an approximate $B-L$ symmetry broken only by a correspondingly small parameter. In this work the possible dynamical generation of the Inverse Seesaw neutrino mass mechanism from the spontaneous breaking of a gauged $U(1)$ $B-L$ symmetry is investigated. Interestingly, the Inverse Seesaw pattern requires a chiral content such that anomaly cancellation predicts the existence of extra fermions belonging to a dark sector with large, non-trivial, charges under the $U(1)$ $B-L$. We investigate the phenomenology associated to these new states and find that one of them is a viable dark matter candidate with mass around the TeV scale, whose interaction with the Standard Model is mediated by the $Z'$ boson associated to the gauged $U(1)$ $B-L$ symmetry. Given the large charges required for anomaly cancellation in the dark sector, the $B-L$ $Z'$ interacts preferentially with this dark sector rather than with the Standard Model. This suppresses the rate at direct detection searches and thus alleviates the constraints on $Z'$-mediated dark matter relic abundance. The collider phenomenology of this elusive $Z'$ is also discussed.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

Prospects for Detecting Galactic Sources of Cosmic Neutrinos with IceCube: An Update

Air-Cherenkov telescopes have mapped the Galactic plane at TeV energies. Here we evaluate the prospects for detecting the neutrino emission from sources in the Galactic plane assuming that the highest energy photons originate from the decay of pions, which yields a straightforward prediction for the neutrino flux from the decay of the associated production of charged pions. Four promising sources are identified based on having a large flux and a flat spectrum. We subsequently evaluate the probability of their identification above the atmospheric neutrino background in IceCube data as a function of time. We show that observing them over the twenty-year lifetime of the instrumentation is likely, and that some should be observable at the $3\,σ$ level with six years of data. In the absence of positive results, we derive constraints on the spectral index and cut-off energy of the sources, assuming a hadronic acceleration mechanism.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2016

Neutrino mass limits: robust information from the power spectrum of galaxy surveys

We present cosmological upper limits on the sum of active neutrino masses using large-scale power spectrum data from the WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey and from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey - Data Release 7 (SDSS-DR7) sample of Luminous Red Galaxies (LRG). Combining measurements on the Cosmic Microwave Background temperature and polarisation anisotropies by the Planck satellite together with WiggleZ power spectrum results in a neutrino mass bound of 0.37 eV at 95% C.L., while replacing WiggleZ by the SDSS-DR7 LRG power spectrum, the 95% C.L. bound on the sum of neutrino masses is 0.38 eV. Adding Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) distance scale measurements, the neutrino mass upper limits greatly improve, since BAO data break degeneracies in parameter space. Within a $Λ$CDM model, we find an upper limit of 0.13 eV (0.14 eV) at 95% C.L., when using SDSS-DR7 LRG (WiggleZ) together with BAO and Planck. The addition of BAO data makes the neutrino mass upper limit robust, showing only a weak dependence on the power spectrum used. We also quantify the dependence of neutrino mass limit reported here on the CMB lensing information. The tighter upper limit (0.13 eV) obtained with SDSS-DR7 LRG is very close to that recently obtained using Lyman-alpha clustering data, yet uses a completely different probe and redshift range, further supporting the robustness of the constraint. This constraint puts under some pressure the inverted mass hierarchy and favours the normal hierarchy.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2015

Robustness of cosmic neutrino background detection in the cosmic microwave background

The existence of a cosmic neutrino background can be probed indirectly by CMB experiments, not only by measuring the background density of radiation in the universe, but also by searching for the typical signatures of the fluctuations of free-streaming species in the temperature and polarisation power spectrum. Previous studies have already proposed a rather generic parametrisation of these fluctuations, that could help to discriminate between the signature of ordinary free-streaming neutrinos, or of more exotic dark radiation models. Current data are compatible with standard values of these parameters, which seems to bring further evidence for the existence of a cosmic neutrino background. In this work, we investigate the robustness of this conclusion under various assumptions. We generalise the definition of an effective sound speed and viscosity speed to the case of massive neutrinos or other dark radiation components experiencing a non-relativistic transition. We show that current bounds on these effective parameters do not vary significantly when considering an arbitrary value of the particle mass, or extended cosmological models with a free effective neutrino number, dynamical dark energy or a running of the primordial spectrum tilt. We conclude that it is possible to make a robust statement about the detection of the cosmic neutrino background by CMB experiments.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Influence of a keV sterile neutrino on neutrino-less double beta decay -- how things changed in the recent years

Earlier studies of the influence of Dark Matter keV sterile neutrinos on neutrino-less double beta decay concluded that there is no significant modification of the decay rate. These studies have focused only on a mass of the keV sterile neutrino above 2 and 4 keV, respectively, as motivated by certain production mechanisms. On the other hand, alternative production mechanisms have been proposed, which relax the lower limit for the mass, and new experimental data are available, too. For this reason, an updated study is timely and worthwhile. We focus on the most recent data, i.e., the newest Chandra and XMM-Newton observational bounds on the X-ray line originating from radiative keV sterile neutrino decay, as well as the new measurement of the previously unknown leptonic mixing angle $θ_{13}$. While the previous works might have been a little short-sighted, the new observational bounds do indeed render any influences of keV sterile neutrinos on neutrino-less double beta decay small. This conclusion even holds in case not all the Dark Matter is made up of keV sterile neutrinos.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

New Production Mechanism for keV Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter by Decays of Frozen-In Scalars

We propose a new production mechanism for keV sterile neutrino Dark Matter. In our setting, we assume the existence of a scalar singlet particle which never entered thermal equilibrium in the early Universe, since it only couples to the Standard Model fields by a really small Higgs portal interaction. For suitable values of this coupling, the scalar can undergo the so-called freeze-in process, and in this way be efficiently produced in the early Universe. These scalars can then decay into keV sterile neutrinos and produce the correct Dark Matter abundance. While similar settings in which the scalar does enter thermal equilibrium and then freezes out have been studied previously, the mechanism proposed here is new and represents a versatile extension of the known case. We perform a detailed numerical calculation of the DM production using a set of coupled Boltzmann equations, and we illustrate the successful regions in the parameter space. Our production mechanism notably can even work in models where active-sterile mixing is completely absent.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Downward-going tau neutrinos as a new prospect of detecting dark matter

Dark matter trapped in the Sun produces a flux of all flavors of neutrinos, which then reach the Earth after propagating out of the Sun and oscillating from the production point to the detector. The typical signal which is looked at refers to the muon neutrino component and consists of a flux of up-going muons in a neutrino detector. We propose instead a novel signature: the possibility of looking at the tau neutrino component of the dark matter signal, which is almost background-free in the downward-going direction, since the tau neutrino amount in atmospheric neutrinos is negligible and in the down-going baseline atmospheric muon-neutrinos have no time to sizably oscillate. We analyze the prospects of studying the downward-going tau neutrinos from dark matter annihilation (or decay) in the Sun in Cherenkov detectors, by looking at hadronic showers produced in the charged-current tau neutrino interactions and subsequent tau decay. We discuss the various sources of background (namely the small tau neutrino component in atmospheric neutrinos, both from direct production and from oscillations; tau neutrinos from solar corona interactions; the galactic tau neutrino component) as well as sources of background due to misidentification of electron and muon events. We find that the downward-going tau neutrinos signal has potentially very good prospects for Mton scale Cherenkov detectors, the main limitation being the level of misidentification of non-tau events, which need to be kept at level of percent. Several tens of events per year (depending on the dark matter mass and annihilation/decay channel) are potentially collectible with a Mton scale detector, and a 5 sigma significance discovery is potentially reachable for dark matter masses in the range from 20 to 300 GeV with a few years of exposure on a Mton detector.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Deriving Models for keV sterile Neutrino Dark Matter with the Froggatt-Nielsen mechanism

Sterile neutrinos with a mass around the keV scale are an attractive particle physics candidate for Warm Dark Matter. Although many frameworks have been presented in which these neutrinos can fulfill all phenomenological constraints, there are hardly any models known that can explain such a peculiar mass pattern, one sterile neutrino at the keV scale and the other two considerably heavier, while at the same time being compatible with low-energy neutrino data. In this paper, we present models based on the Froggatt-Nielsen mechanism, which can give such an explanation. We explain how to assign Froggatt-Nielsen charges in a successful way, and we give a detailed discussion of all conditions to be fulfilled. It turns out that the typical arbitrariness of the charge assignments is greatly reduced when trying to carefully account for all constraints. We furthermore present analytical calculations of a few simplified models, while quasi-perfect models are found numerically.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

Soft L_e-L_mu-L_tau flavour symmetry breaking and sterile neutrino keV Dark Matter

We discuss how a $L_e-L_μ-L_τ$ flavour symmetry that is softly broken leads to keV sterile neutrinos, which are a prime candidate for Warm Dark Matter. This is to our knowledge the first model where flavour symmetries are applied simultaneously to active and sterile neutrinos explaining at the same time active neutrino properties and this peculiar Dark Matter scenario. The essential point is that different scales of the symmetry breaking and the symmetry preserving entries in the mass matrix lead to one right-handed neutrino which is nearly massless compared to the other two. Furthermore, we naturally predict vanishing $θ_{13}$ and maximal $θ_{23}$, while the correct value of $θ_{12}$ must come from the mixing of the charged leptons. We can furthermore predict an exact mass spectrum for the light neutrinos, which will be testable in the very near future.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

Leptophilic Dark Matter in Direct Detection Experiments and in the Sun

Dark matter interacting predominantly with leptons instead of nuclear matter has received a lot of interest recently. In this talk, we investigate the signals expected from such 'leptophilic Dark Matter' in direct detection experiments and in experiments looking for Dark Matter annihilation into neutrinos in the Sun. In a model-independent framework, we calculate the expected interaction rates for different scattering processes, including elastic and inelastic scattering off atomic electron shells, as well as loop-induced scattering off atomic nuclei. In those cases where the last effect dominates, leptophilic Dark Matter cannot be distinguished from conventional WIMPs. On the other hand, if inelastic scattering off the electron shell dominates, the expected event spectrum in direct detection experiments is different and would provide a distinct signal. However, we find that the signals in DAMA and/or CoGeNT cannot be explained by invoking leptophilic DM because the predicted and observed energy spectra do not match, and because of neutrino bounds from the Sun.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

Enhancing Dark Matter Annihilation into Neutrinos

We perform a detailed and quasi model-independent analysis of direct annihilation of Dark Matter into neutrinos. Considering different cases for scalar and fermionic Dark Matter, we identify several settings in which this annihilation is enhanced, contrary to some statements in the literature. They key point is that several restrictions of, e.g., a supersymmetric framework do not hold in general. The mass generation mechanism of the neutrinos plays an important role, too. We illustrate our considerations by two examples that are not (as usually) suppressed by the smallness of the neutrino mass, for which we also present a numerical analysis. Our results can be easily used as guidelines for model building.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2009

DAMA/LIBRA and leptonically interacting Dark Matter

We consider the hypothesis that Dark Matter (DM) has tree-level interactions only with leptons. Such a framework, where DM recoils against electrons bound in atoms, has been proposed as an explanation for the annually modulated scintillation signal in DAMA/LIBRA versus the absence of a signal for nuclear recoils in experiments like CDMS or XENON10. However, even in such a leptophilic DM scenario there are loop induced DM-hadron interactions, where the photons emitted from virtual leptons couple to the charge of a nucleus. Using a general effective field theory approach we show that, if such an interaction is induced at one or two-loop level, then DM-nucleus scattering dominates over DM-electron scattering. This is because the latter is suppressed by the bound state wave function. One obtains a situation similar to standard DM-nucleus scattering analyses with considerable tension between the results of DAMA and CDMS/XENON10. This conclusion does not apply in the case of pseudoscalar or axial vector coupling between DM and leptons, where the loop diagrams vanish. In this case the explanation of the DAMA signal in terms of DM-electron scattering is strongly disfavored by the spectral shape of the signal. Furthermore, if DM can annihilate into neutrinos or tau leptons, the required cross sections are excluded by many orders of magnitude using the Super-Kamiokande bound on neutrinos from DM annihilations in the Sun.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2009

On the Consistency of Perturbativity and Gauge Coupling Unification

We investigate constraints that the requirements of perturbativity and gauge coupling unification impose on extensions of the Standard Model and of the MSSM. In particular, we discuss the renormalization group running in several SUSY left-right symmetric and Pati-Salam models and show how the various scales appearing in these models have to be chosen in order to achieve unification. We find that unification in the considered models occurs typically at scales below M^{min}_{B violation} = 10^16 GeV, implying potential conflicts with the non-observation of proton decay. We emphasize that extending the particle content of a model in order to push the GUT scale higher or to achieve unification in the first place will very often lead to non-perturbative evolution. We generalize this observation to arbitrary extensions of the Standard Model and of the MSSM and show that the requirement of perturbativity up to M^{min}_{B violation}, if considered a valid guideline for model building, severely limits the particle content of any such model, especially in the supersymmetric case. However, we also discuss several mechanisms to circumvent perturbativity and proton decay issues, for example in certain classes of extra dimensional models.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2008

An accurate analytic description of neutrino oscillations in matter

A simple closed-form analytic expression for the probability of two-flavour neutrino oscillations in a matter with an arbitrary density profile is derived. Our formula is based on a perturbative expansion and allows an easy calculation of higher order corrections. The expansion parameter is small when the density changes relatively slowly along the neutrino path and/or neutrino energy is not very close to the Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein (MSW) resonance energy. Our approximation is not equivalent to the adiabatic approximation and actually goes beyond it. We demonstrate the validity of our results using a few model density profiles, including the PREM density profile of the Earth. It is shown that by combining the results obtained from the expansions valid below and above the MSW resonance one can obtain a very good description of neutrino oscillations in matter in the entire energy range, including the resonance region.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2008

On Probing theta_{23} in Neutrino Telescopes

Among all neutrino mixing parameters, the atmospheric neutrino mixing angle theta_{23} introduces the strongest variation on the flux ratios of ultra high energy neutrinos. We investigate the potential of these flux ratio measurements at neutrino telescopes to constrain theta_{23}. We consider astrophysical neutrinos originating from pion, muon-damped and neutron sources and make a comparative study of their sensitivity reach to theta_{23}. It is found that neutron sources are most favorable for testing deviations from maximal theta_{23}. Using a chi^2 analysis, we show in particular the power of combining (i) different flux ratios from the same type of source, and also (ii) combining flux ratios from different astrophysical sources. We include in our analysis ``impure'' sources, i.e., deviations from the usually assumed initial (1 : 2 : 0), (0 : 1 : 0) or (1 : 0 : 0) flux compositions.

hep-ph↗