Neutrino Mass Hierarchy and Stepwise Spectral Swapping of Supernova Neutrino Flavors
- Department of Physics, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0319 (United States)
- Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 (United States)
- School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455 (United States)
We examine a phenomenon recently predicted by numerical simulations of supernova neutrino flavor evolution: the swapping of supernova {nu}{sub e} and {nu}{sub {mu}}{sub ,{tau}} energy spectra below (above) energy E{sub C} for the normal (inverted) neutrino mass hierarchy. We present the results of large-scale numerical calculations which show that in the normal neutrino mass hierarchy case, E{sub C} decreases as the assumed effective 2x2 vacuum {nu}{sub e}<-->{nu}{sub {mu}}{sub ,{tau}} mixing angle ({approx_equal}{theta}{sub 13}) is decreased. In contrast, these calculations indicate that E{sub C} is essentially independent of the vacuum mixing angle in the inverted neutrino mass hierarchy case. With a good neutrino signal from a future galactic supernova, the above results could be used to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy even if {theta}{sub 13} is too small to be measured by terrestrial neutrino oscillation experiments.
- OSTI ID:
- 21024560
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 99, Issue 24; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.241802; (c) 2007 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0031-9007
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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