Probing non-standard decoherence effects with solar and KamLAND neutrinos

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dc.creatorFogli, G. L.
dc.creatorLisi, E.
dc.creatorMarrone, A.
dc.creatorMontanino, D.
dc.creatorPalazzo, A.
dc.date2007-04-19
dc.date2007-07-18
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T10:59:40Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T10:59:40Z
dc.descriptionIt 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.
dc.descriptionMinor changes. Version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2568
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2568
dc.identifierPhys.Rev.D76:033006,2007
dc.identifierdoi:10.1103/PhysRevD.76.033006
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/187480
dc.subjectHigh Energy Physics - Phenomenology
dc.subjectAstrophysics
dc.subjectGeneral Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
dc.titleProbing non-standard decoherence effects with solar and KamLAND neutrinos
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