123036815
Neutrino oscillation phenomenology with fermions beyond the standard model
ii To My Parents iii Declaration This thesis is a presentation of my original research work. Wherever contributions of others are involved, every effort is made to indicate this clearly, with due reference to the literature, and acknowledgement of collaborative research and discussions. In my capacity as supervisor of the candidates thesis, I certify that the above statements are true to the best of my knowledge. Amol Dighe Date v Acknowledgment I would like to acknowledge my thesis supervisor Prof. Amol Dighe for introducing me to the exciting field of neutrino physics. I am extremely thankful to him for his constant support, encouragement and guidance. I would also like to thank all my collaborators for their kind cooperation and continuous support. I am truly thankful to all the former and present students of the department with whom I have shared the office and who helped me a lot day in and day out. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the faculty members and the non-academic members of our department. Finally without the support and help of family members and my friends it would have been impossible for me to finish this thesis work. I am thankful to all of them. vii Synopsis S.1 Introduction The field of neutrino physics has made immense progress in the last decade, which was initiated when the Super-Kamiokande experiment in Japan [1] reported the evidence for oscillations in the atmospheric neutrinos. Afterwards oscillations in the solar neutrinos were established by the SNO experiment [2], which solved the long-standing solar neutrino puzzle. Results from the controlled source experiments KamLAND [3] and K2K [4, 5] provided further confirmation of the oscillation phenomena. Various short baseline experiments also probed the neutrino mixing parameter space in different regions. There have also been experiments that indicated the presence of neutrino mixing beyond three flavors. The first such experiment showing the positive indication for the neutrino oscillation beyond the three-neutrino paradigm was the Los Alamos LSND [6] experiment, but the KARMEN [7] experiment strongly constrained the LSND parameter space. Currently MiniBooNE [8] experiment at Fermilab has probed the entire LSND parameter region but has not observed any neutrino oscillations. If the controversial LSND claim is set aside for the moment, the current knowledge about the neutrinos is that there are three neutrino flavors (ν α , α ∈ {e, µ, τ }), which mix to form three …
119869500
Lower bounds on the smallest lepton mixing angle
We give minimal values for the smallest lepton mixing parameter |U{sub e3}|, applying 2-loop renormalization group equations in an effective theory approach. This is relevant in scenarios that predict an inverted neutrino mass spectrum with the smallest mass and |U{sub e3}| being zero at tree level, a situation known to be preserved at 1-loop order. At 2-loop, |U{sub e3}| is generated at a level of 10{sup -12}-10{sup -14}. Such small values are of interest in supernova physics. Corresponding limits for the normal mass ordering are several orders of magnitude larger. Our results show that |U{sub e3}| can in general be expected to be nonzero.
119875035
New physics signals at long baseline experiments
We develop a formalism that gives analytically tractable expressions for flavor conversion probabilities at long baseline experiments, in the presence of any number of sterile neutrino species or with CPT violation. Using a perturbative expansion in the small parameters we show that, even in a completely general analysis, only certain specific combinations of the mixing parameters are relevant and hence can be probed in the experiments. We identify the long baseline experiments which will be able to probe those observable combinations in a clean manner and estimate their reach in measuring or constraining those observables.
118994296
Signatures of heavy sterile neutrinos at long baseline experiments
Sterile neutrinos with masses {approx}0.1 eV or higher, allowed with the current oscillation data, can potentially play an important role in astrophysics and cosmology. We explore possible signatures of such sterile neutrinos at long baseline experiments. We determine the neutrino conversion probabilities analytically in a 4-neutrino framework, including matter effects, treating the sterile mixing angles {theta}{sub 14}, {theta}{sub 24}, {theta}{sub 34}, the deviation of {theta}{sub 23} from maximality, as well as {theta}{sub 13} and the ratio {delta}m{sub {center_dot}}{sup 2}/{delta}m{sub atm}{sup 2} as small parameters for a perturbative expansion. This gives rise to analytically tractable expressions for flavor conversion probabilities from which effects of these parameters can be clearly understood. We numerically calculate the signals at a neutrino factory with near and far detectors that can identify the lepton charge, and point out observables that can discern the sterile mixing signals. We find that clean identification of sterile mixing would be possible for {theta}{sub 24}{theta}{sub 34} > or approx. 0.005 (3{sigma}) and {theta}{sub 14} > or approx. 0.06 rad (3{sigma}) with the current bound of {theta}{sub 13}<0.2 rad; a better {theta}{sub 13} bound would allow probing smaller values of sterile mixing. We also generalize the formalism for any number of sterilemore » neutrinos, and demonstrate that only certain combinations of sterile mixing parameters are relevant irrespective of the number of sterile neutrinos. This also leads to a stringent test of the scenario with multiple sterile neutrinos that currently is able to describe all the data from the short baseline experiments, including LSND and MiniBooNE.« less
118317908
CP asymmetry in the decays B ---> (X(s), X(d)) mu+ mu- with four generations
We estimate the CP asymmetry A CP (q 2 ) in the decays B → X s μ + μ - and B → X d μ + μ in the standard model (SM) with an additional fourth generation. We use a parametrization that allows us to explore the complete parameter space of the 4 X 4 quark mixing matrix, and constrain these parameters from the current data on B decays. We find that the enhancement in A CP (q 2 ) depends strongly on the mass of the t 1 , the up-type quark in the fourth generation. For m t 1 around 400 GeV, the CP asymmetry in the high-q 2 region (q 2 > 14.4 GeV 2 ) can be enhanced by more than an order of magnitude for B → X s μ + μ - and up to a factor of 6 for B → X d μ + μ - . There is no enhancement in the low-q 2 region (1 < q 2 < 6 GeV 2 ). With increasing m t 1 , A CP (q 2 ) in the high-q 2 (low-q 2 ) region first decreases (increases) and then saturates at a value a few times the SM prediction. In the high-q 2 region of B → X s μ + μ - , this saturation value may be up to 25 times the SM expectation.
118450272
Renormalization group evolution of neutrino masses and mixing in the Type-III seesaw mechanism
Abstract We consider the standard model extended by heavy right-handed fermions transforming as triplets under SU ( 2 ) L , which generate neutrino masses through the Type-III seesaw mechanism. At energies below their respective mass scales, the heavy fields get sequentially decoupled to give an effective dimension-5 operator. Above their mass thresholds, these fields also participate in the renormalization of the wavefunctions, masses and coupling constants. We compute the renormalization group evolution of the effective neutrino mass matrix in this model, with particular emphasis on the threshold effects. The evolution equations are obtained in a basis of neutrino parameters where all the quantities are well-defined everywhere, including at θ 13 = 0 . We also point out the important role of the threshold effects and Majorana phases in the evolution of mixing angles through illustrative examples.
197530993
Generalized Model for Lambda Dark Energy
119438703
CHARGED POLYTROPIC STARS AND A GENERALIZATION OF LANE–EMDEN EQUATION
In this paper we discuss charged stars with polytropic equation of state, where we derive an equation analogous to the Lane–Endem equation. We assume that these stars are spherically symmetric, and the electric field have only the radial component. First we review the field equations for such stars and then we proceed with the analog of the Lane–Emden equation for a polytropic Newtonian fluid and their relativistic equivalent (Tooper, 1964).1 These kind of equations are very interesting because they transform all the structure equations of the stars in a group of differential equations which are much more simple to solve than the source equations. These equations can be solved numerically for some boundary conditions and for some initial parameters. For this we assume that the pressure caused by the electric field obeys a polytropic equation of state too.
14627322
The dark energy equation of state
ABSTRACT We perform a study of cosmic evolution with an equation of state parameter ω(t) = ω 0 +ω 1 (tH/H˙ ) by selecting a phenomenological Λ model of the form, Λ˙ ∼ H 3 . This simpleproposition explains both linearly expanding and inﬂation ary Universes with a single set ofequations. We notice that the inﬂation leads to a scaling in t he equation of state parameter,ω(t), and hence in equation of state. In this approach, one of its two parameters have been pinpointed and the other have been delineated. It has been possible to show a connection betweendark energy and Higgs-Boson.Key words: gravitation - cosmological parameters - cosmology: theory- early Universe. 1 INTRODUCTIONCosmological research is mainly concerned with time (and in somecases space as well) evolution of various physical parameters likescale factor, Hubble parameter, matter-energy density etc. Alongwith these parameters, in recent years a new physical entity Λ hasresurrected in the foreground of cosmology. In fact, Λ has becomean essential part of the ﬁeld equations of Einstein after som e ob-servational results (Riess et al. 1998; Perlmutter et al. 1999) indi-cated towards an accelerating Universe. It is believed by most ofthe physicists that the cosmological parameter Λ is responsible fordriving the present acceleration because it can exert negative pres-sure. Moreover, due to some ﬁne-tuning problem (known as cos-mological constant problem), Λ is regarded as a variable quantityrather than a constant.Now, in order to specify exact time-dependence of the un-known physical quantities including Λ, one has to take recourse ofa relationship between cosmic pressure p and matter-energy den-sity ρ involving the equation of state parameter ω. Mathemati-cally speaking, one variable quantity can depend on the productof two other variable quantities. So, one may construct ω as a func-tion of time, red-shift or scale factor (Chervon & Zhuravlev2000;Zhuravlev 2001; Peebles & Ratra 2003). In fact, values of ω at dif-ferent stages of cosmic evolution suggest that it may evolve withtime. As an instance, for the present pressure-less Universe, thevalue of ω is considered as zero, whereas its value was 1/3 in theearly radiation dominated Universe. However, it is convenient toconsider ω as a constant quantity because observational data canhardly distinguish between a varying and a constant equation of
123471272
Accelerating Universe with dynamic cosmological term $\Lambda$
55736791
CMB polarization TE power spectrum estimation with non-circular beam
Precise measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy have been one of the foremost concerns in modern cosmology as it provides valuable information on the cosmology of the universe. However, an accurate estimation of the CMB power spectrum faces many challenges as the CMB experiments sensitivity increases. Furthermore, for polarization experiments the precision of measurement is complicated by the fact that the polarisation signal is very faint compared to the measured total intensity, and could be impossible to detect in the presence of high level of systematics. One of the most important source of errors in CMB polarization experiment is the beam asymmetry. For large data set the estimation of the CMB polarization power spectrum with standard optimal Maximum Likelihood (ML) is prohibitive for high resolution CMB experiments due to the enormous required computation time. In this paper, we present a semi-analytical framework using the pseudo-$C_{l}$ estimator to compute the power spectrum TE of the temperature anisotropy and the E-component of the polarization radiation field using non-circular beams. We adopt a model of beams obtained from a perturbative expansion of the beam around a circular (axisymmetric) one in harmonic space, and compute the resulting bias matrix which relates the true power spectrum with the observed one using an efficient algorithm for rapid computation. We show that for a multipole up to $l_{max}=500$, the bias matrix can be computed in less than one second with a single CPU processor at 2.53 GHz. We find that the uncertainties induced by the beam asymmetry in the polarization power spectrum at the peak of the bias matrix for WMAP and Planck experiments can be as large as a few 10 to 20% (upper limit for Planck LFI 30 GHz)