This book covers the field of neutrino physics and astrophysics, providing an up-to-date presentation of the different research topics on the frontier of the field. It starts with a historical description to understand how the different aspects of our knowledge about the neutrinos evolved up to the present state. The main required elements of the Standard Model of electroweak interactions are introduced, and the different neutrino interactions and detection techniques are presented. We introduce the various ways to give neutrinos a mass and the phenomenon of neutrino oscillations which provides the main evidence for non-vanishing neutrino masses. We then consider the neutrinos produced in the Sun, what we have learned from them, and how they can also be useful to study our star. The geoneutrinos produced by the radioactivity in the Earth are discussed and the status of their detection is presented. We survey the neutrino production in the supernova explosions at the end of the life of very massive stars, what has been observed in SN1987A, and what could be learned from a future supernova or from the observation of the diffuse supernova neutrino background. We describe in detail the neutrino production by cosmic rays interacting in the atmosphere, the evidence for their flavor oscillations, and the oscillograms to describe their flavor change in terrestrial matter. The different mechanisms of production of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos and the observations achieved with the IceCube detector are presented, also discussing their flavor content by means of the flavor triangle. We then examine the cosmological neutrino background, its impact on Big Bang nucleosynthesis and on the CMB observations, with the associated bound on their masses and effective number. Finally, we review the basics of the leptogenesis scenarios, which provide an attractive explanation for the observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe.
Author(s): Esteban Roulet, Francesco Vissani
Publisher: World Scientific Publishing
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 235
City: Singapore
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. The Neutrino Story
1.1 The hypothetical particle
1.2 The vampire
1.3 The trilogy
1.4 The gauge theory
1.5 Neutrinos in astrophysics and cosmology
Suggested exercises:
Recommended reading:
2. Neutrino Interactions and Detection Techniques
2.1 Neutrino cross sections
2.1.1 Neutrino–lepton interactions
2.1.2 Low energy neutrino interactions with nucleons and nuclei
2.1.3 Neutrino interactions with nucleons at high energies
2.1.4 The W and Z resonances
2.2 Neutrino detection techniques
Suggested exercises
Recommended reading
3. Neutrino Masses and Mixings
3.1 Charged fermion masses and quark mixing
3.2 The Dirac equation
3.3 The antiparticle field
3.4 Dirac, Weyl and Majorana spinors
3.5 Neutrino masses
3.5.1 Dirac neutrino masses
3.5.2 Majorana neutrino masses
3.6 Experimental signatures of Majorana neutrinos
3.7 Neutrino mixing
Suggested exercises:
4. Neutrino Oscillations
4.1 Neutrino oscillations in vacuum
4.2 Neutrino oscillations in matter
4.3 Averaged neutrino oscillations
4.4 Quantum mechanical decoherence
4.5 Status of the determination of the neutrino masses and mixings
Suggested exercises:
5. Solar Neutrinos
5.1 The Sun: observational facts and theoretical expectations
5.2 Nuclear reactions and the production of solar neutrinos
5.3 Observations of solar neutrinos and inferred neutrino properties
5.4 Impact of solar neutrinos on our understanding of the Sun
Suggested exercises:
Recommended reading:
6. Geoneutrinos
6.1 The internal heat of the Earth
6.2 Main radioactive decays in the Earth
6.3 Expected antineutrino uxe
6.4 Observational results and issues at stake
Suggested exercises:
7. Supernova Neutrinos
7.1 Generalities about core collapse supernovae
7.2 Expectations for the neutrino emission
7.3 The observable neutrino signal
7.4 SN1987A
7.5 Neutrinos from the next Galactic supernova
7.6 Diffuse supernova neutrino background
7.7 Pre-supernova neutrinos
Suggested exercises:
Recommended reading:
8. Atmospheric Neutrinos
8.1 The oscillation of atmospheric neutrinos
8.2 Oscillations inside the Earth and the oscillograms
8.3 The high-energy atmospheric neutrino fluxes
8.4 The cascade equations
Suggested exercises:
Recommended reading:
9. High-energy Astrophysical Neutrinos
9.1 High-energy neutrino production
9.1.1 The cosmic-ray connection
9.1.2 The pp and pγ mechanisms of neutrino production
9.1.3 Connection between neutrino and gamma-ray astronomies
9.1.4 Connection between neutrino and cosmic-ray fluxes
9.2 The search for the astrophysical neutrinos
9.3 The event topologies
9.3.1 The throughgoing muons
9.3.2 The cascades
9.3.3 Double bangs and double pulses
9.3.4 The starting events
9.3.5 The Glashow resonance
9.4 The measured astrophysical neutrino spectrum
9.5 Neutrino attenuation by the Earth
9.6 Effects of astrophysical neutrino oscillations and the flavor triangle
9.7 Other searches and outlook
Suggested exercises:
10. Neutrinos in Cosmology
10.1 The neutrino decoupling
10.2 Cosmological bounds on neutrino masses
10.3 Big Bang nucleosynthesis and neutrinos
10.4 Neutrinos and the baryon asymmetry of the Universe
Suggested excercises:
Recommended reading:
Bibliography
