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Distefano C. Giant ice cube hints at the existence of cosmic antineutrinos. Nature 2021; 591:206-207. [PMID: 33692553 DOI: 10.1038/d41586-021-00486-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
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Detection of a particle shower at the Glashow resonance with IceCube. Nature 2021; 591:220-224. [PMID: 33692563 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03256-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2020] [Accepted: 01/18/2021] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
The Glashow resonance describes the resonant formation of a W- boson during the interaction of a high-energy electron antineutrino with an electron1, peaking at an antineutrino energy of 6.3 petaelectronvolts (PeV) in the rest frame of the electron. Whereas this energy scale is out of reach for currently operating and future planned particle accelerators, natural astrophysical phenomena are expected to produce antineutrinos with energies beyond the PeV scale. Here we report the detection by the IceCube neutrino observatory of a cascade of high-energy particles (a particle shower) consistent with being created at the Glashow resonance. A shower with an energy of 6.05 ± 0.72 PeV (determined from Cherenkov radiation in the Antarctic Ice Sheet) was measured. Features consistent with the production of secondary muons in the particle shower indicate the hadronic decay of a resonant W- boson, confirm that the source is astrophysical and provide improved directional localization. The evidence of the Glashow resonance suggests the presence of electron antineutrinos in the astrophysical flux, while also providing further validation of the standard model of particle physics. Its unique signature indicates a method of distinguishing neutrinos from antineutrinos, thus providing a way to identify astronomical accelerators that produce neutrinos via hadronuclear or photohadronic interactions, with or without strong magnetic fields. As such, knowledge of both the flavour (that is, electron, muon or tau neutrinos) and charge (neutrino or antineutrino) will facilitate the advancement of neutrino astronomy.
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Babu KS, Dev PSB, Jana S, Sui Y. Zee-Burst: A New Probe of Neutrino Nonstandard Interactions at IceCube. PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2020; 124:041805. [PMID: 32058789 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.124.041805] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/16/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
We propose a new way to probe nonstandard interactions (NSI) of neutrinos with matter using the ultrahigh energy (UHE) neutrino data at current and future neutrino telescopes. We consider the Zee model of radiative neutrino mass generation as a prototype, which allows two charged scalars-one SU(2)_{L} doublet and one singlet, both being leptophilic, to be as light as 100 GeV, thereby inducing potentially observable NSI with electrons. We show that these light charged Zee scalars could give rise to a Glashow-like resonance feature in the UHE neutrino event spectrum at the IceCube neutrino observatory and its high-energy upgrade IceCube-Gen2, which can probe a sizable fraction of the allowed NSI parameter space.
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Affiliation(s)
- K S Babu
- Department of Physics, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma 74078, USA
| | - P S Bhupal Dev
- Department of Physics and McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130, USA
| | - Sudip Jana
- Department of Physics, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma 74078, USA
| | - Yicong Sui
- Department of Physics and McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130, USA
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Bustamante M, Ahlers M. Inferring the Flavor of High-Energy Astrophysical Neutrinos at Their Sources. PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2019; 122:241101. [PMID: 31322385 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.122.241101] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/04/2019] [Revised: 04/08/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
The sources and production mechanisms of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos are largely unknown. A promising opportunity for progress lies in the study of neutrino flavor composition, i.e., the proportion of each flavor in the flux of neutrinos, which reflects the physical conditions at the sources. To seize it, we introduce a Bayesian method that infers the flavor composition at the neutrino sources based on the flavor composition measured at Earth. We find that the present data from the IceCube neutrino telescope favor neutrino production via the decay of high-energy pions and rule out production via the decay of neutrons. In the future, improved measurements of flavor composition and mixing parameters may single out the production mechanism with high significance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mauricio Bustamante
- Niels Bohr International Academy and Discovery Centre, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
- DARK, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Markus Ahlers
- Niels Bohr International Academy and Discovery Centre, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
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Bustamante M, Agarwalla SK. Universe's Worth of Electrons to Probe Long-Range Interactions of High-Energy Astrophysical Neutrinos. PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2019; 122:061103. [PMID: 30822075 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.122.061103] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/27/2018] [Revised: 01/09/2019] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
Astrophysical searches for new long-range interactions complement collider searches for new short-range interactions. Conveniently, neutrino flavor oscillations are keenly sensitive to the existence of long-ranged flavored interactions between neutrinos and electrons, motivated by lepton-number symmetries of the standard model. For the first time, we probe them using TeV-PeV astrophysical neutrinos and accounting for all large electron repositories in the local and distant Universe. The high energies and colossal number of electrons grant us unprecedented sensitivity to the new interaction, even if it is extraordinarily feeble. Based on IceCube results for the flavor composition of astrophysical neutrinos, we set the ultimate bounds on long-range neutrino flavored interactions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mauricio Bustamante
- Niels Bohr International Academy and Discovery Center, Niels Bohr Institute, Blegdamsvej 17, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Sanjib Kumar Agarwalla
- Institute of Physics, Sachivalaya Marg, Sainik School Post, Bhubaneswar 751005, India
- Homi Bhabha National Institute, Anushakti Nagar, Mumbai 400085, India
- International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Strada Costiera 11, 34151 Trieste, Italy
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Bustamante M, Connolly A. Extracting the Energy-Dependent Neutrino-Nucleon Cross Section above 10 TeV Using IceCube Showers. PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2019; 122:041101. [PMID: 30768285 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.122.041101] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2018] [Revised: 11/17/2018] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
Neutrinos are key to probing the deep structure of matter and the high-energy Universe. Yet, until recently, their interactions had only been measured at laboratory energies up to about 350 GeV. An opportunity to measure their interactions at higher energies opened up with the detection of high-energy neutrinos in IceCube, partially of astrophysical origin. Scattering off matter inside Earth affects the distribution of their arrival directions-from this, we extract the neutrino-nucleon cross section at energies from 18 TeV to 2 PeV, in four energy bins, in spite of uncertainties in the neutrino flux. Using six years of public IceCube High-Energy Starting Events, we explicitly show for the first time that the energy dependence of the cross section above 18 TeV agrees with the predicted softer-than-linear dependence, and reaffirm the absence of new physics that would make the cross section rise sharply, up to a center-of-mass energy sqrt[s]≈1 TeV.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mauricio Bustamante
- Niels Bohr International Academy & Discovery Centre, Niels Bohr Institute, Blegdamsvej 17, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
- Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics (CCAPP), The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
- Department of Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
| | - Amy Connolly
- Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics (CCAPP), The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
- Department of Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
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Biehl D, Boncioli D, Lunardini C, Winter W. Tidally disrupted stars as a possible origin of both cosmic rays and neutrinos at the highest energies. Sci Rep 2018; 8:10828. [PMID: 30018410 PMCID: PMC6050258 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-29022-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 41] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2018] [Accepted: 07/03/2018] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Tidal Disruption Events (TDEs) are processes where stars are torn apart by the strong gravitational force near to a massive or supermassive black hole. If a jet is launched in such a process, particle acceleration may take place in internal shocks. We demonstrate that jetted TDEs can simultaneously describe the observed neutrino and cosmic ray fluxes at the highest energies if stars with heavier compositions, such as carbon-oxygen white dwarfs, are tidally disrupted and these events are sufficiently abundant. We simulate the photo-hadronic interactions both in the TDE jet and in the propagation through the extragalactic space and we show that the simultaneous description of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Ray (UHECR) and PeV neutrino data implies that a nuclear cascade in the jet is developed by photo-hadronic interactions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Biehl
- Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Platanenallee 6, D-15738, Zeuthen, Germany
| | - Denise Boncioli
- Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Platanenallee 6, D-15738, Zeuthen, Germany.
| | - Cecilia Lunardini
- Department of Physics, Arizona State University, 450 E. Tyler Mall, Tempe, AZ, 85287-1504, USA
| | - Walter Winter
- Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Platanenallee 6, D-15738, Zeuthen, Germany
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Bustamante M, Beacom JF, Winter W. Theoretically Palatable Flavor Combinations of Astrophysical Neutrinos. PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2015; 115:161302. [PMID: 26550861 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.115.161302] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/02/2015] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
The flavor composition of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos can reveal the physics governing their production, propagation, and interaction. The IceCube Collaboration has published the first experimental determination of the ratio of the flux in each flavor to the total. We present, as a theoretical counterpart, new results for the allowed ranges of flavor ratios at Earth for arbitrary flavor ratios in the sources. Our results will allow IceCube to more quickly identify when their data imply standard physics, a general class of new physics with arbitrary (incoherent) combinations of mass eigenstates, or new physics that goes beyond that, e.g., with terms that dominate the Hamiltonian at high energy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mauricio Bustamante
- Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics (CCAPP), Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
- Department of Physics, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
| | - John F Beacom
- Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics (CCAPP), Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
- Department of Physics, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
- Department of Astronomy, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
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Anchordoqui LA, Barger V, Goldberg H, Huang X, Marfatia D, da Silva LH, Weiler TJ. IceCube neutrinos, decaying dark matter, and the Hubble constant. Int J Clin Exp Med 2015. [DOI: 10.1103/physrevd.92.061301] [Citation(s) in RCA: 44] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
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Fu L, Ho CM, Weiler TJ. Aspects of the flavor triangle for cosmic neutrino propagation. Int J Clin Exp Med 2015. [DOI: 10.1103/physrevd.91.053001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
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