Physics – High Energy Physics – High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Scientific paper
2007-04-19
Phys.Rev.D76:033006,2007
Physics
High Energy Physics
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Minor changes. Version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D
Scientific paper
10.1103/PhysRevD.76.033006
It has been speculated that quantum gravity might induce a "foamy" space-time structure at small scales, randomly perturbing the propagation phases of free-streaming particles (such as kaons, neutrons, or neutrinos). Particle interferometry might then reveal non-standard decoherence effects, in addition to standard ones (due to, e.g., finite source size and detector resolution.) In this work we discuss the phenomenology of such non-standard effects in the propagation of electron neutrinos in the Sun and in the long-baseline reactor experiment KamLAND, which jointly provide us with the best available probes of decoherence at neutrino energies E ~ few MeV. In the solar neutrino case, by means of a perturbative approach, decoherence is shown to modify the standard (adiabatic) propagation in matter through a calculable damping factor. By assuming a power-law dependence of decoherence effects in the energy domain (E^n with n = 0,+/-1,+/-2), theoretical predictions for two-family neutrino mixing are compared with the data and discussed. We find that neither solar nor KamLAND data show evidence in favor of non-standard decoherence effects, whose characteristic parameter gamma_0 can thus be significantly constrained. In the "Lorentz-invariant" case n=-1, we obtain the upper limit gamma_0<0.78 x 10^-26 GeV at 95% C.L. In the specific case n=-2, the constraints can also be interpreted as bounds on possible matter density fluctuations in the Sun, which we improve by a factor of ~ 2 with respect to previous analyses.
Fogli Gian Luigi
Lisi Eligio
Marrone Antonio
Montanino Daniele
Palazzo Antonio
No associations
LandOfFree
Probing non-standard decoherence effects with solar and KamLAND neutrinos does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Probing non-standard decoherence effects with solar and KamLAND neutrinos, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Probing non-standard decoherence effects with solar and KamLAND neutrinos will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-213379