Title: Decoherence in neutrino propagation through matter, and bounds from IceCube/DeepCore

Abstract

Here, we revisit neutrino oscillations in matter considering the open quantum system framework, which allows to introduce possible decoherence effects generated by New Physics in a phenomenological manner. We assume that the decoherence parameters $$\gamma _{ij}$$ may depend on the neutrino energy, as $$\gamma _{ij}=\gamma _{ij}^{0}(E/\text {GeV})^n\ (n = 0,\pm 1,\pm 2) $$ . The case of non-uniform matter is studied in detail and, in particular, we develop a consistent formalism to study the non-adiabatic case dividing the matter profile into an arbitrary number of layers of constant densities. This formalism is then applied to explore the sensitivity of IceCube and DeepCore to this type of effects. Our study is the first atmospheric neutrino analysis where a consistent treatment of the matter effects in the three-neutrino case is performed in presence of decoherence. We show that matter effects are indeed extremely relevant in this context. We find that IceCube is able to considerably improve over current bounds in the solar sector ( $$\gamma _{21}$$ ) and in the atmospheric sector ( $$\gamma _{31}$$ and $$\gamma _{32}$$ ) for $n=0,1,2$ and, in particular, by several orders of magnitude (between 3 and 9) for the $n=1,2$ cases. For $n=0$ we find $$\gamma _{32},\gamma _{31}< 4.0\times 10^{-24}\, (1.3\times 10^{-24})\ \hbox {GeV}$$ and $$\gamma _{21}<1.3\times 10^{-24}\, (4.1\times 10^{-24})\ \hbox {GeV}$$ at the 95% CL, for normal (inverted) mass ordering.

Authors:

Coloma, Pilar ^[1]; Lopez-Pavon, Jacob ^[2]; Martinez-Soler, Ivan ^[3]; Nunokawa, Hiroshi ^[4]

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+ Show Author Affiliations

1. Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
2. European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva (Switzerland)
3. Instituto de Física Teorica UAM-CSIC, Madrid (Spain)
4. Pontificia Univ. Catolica do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)

Publication Date:

2018-08-01

Research Org.:

Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:

USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)

OSTI Identifier:

1436721

Report Number(s):

arXiv:1803.04438; CERN-TH-2018-041; IFT-UAM/CSIC-18-022; FERMILAB-PUB-18-067-T
Journal ID: ISSN 1434-6044; 1662307; TRN: US1900225

Grant/Contract Number:  

AC02-07CH11359

Resource Type:

Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:

European Physical Journal. C, Particles and Fields

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Volume: 78; Journal Issue: 8; Journal ID: ISSN 1434-6044

Publisher:

Springer

Country of Publication:

United States

Language:

English

Subject:

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS