Neutrino flavor ratios as diagnostic of solar WIMP annihilation
Preprint
- 8 August 2007
Abstract
We consider the neutrino (and antineutrino) flavors arriving at Earth for neutrinos produced in the annihilation of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) in the Sun's core. Solar-matter effects on the flavor propagation of the resulting $\agt$ GeV neutrinos are studied analytically within a density-matrix formalism. Matter effects, including mass-state level-crossings, influence the flavor fluxes considerably. The exposition herein is somewhat pedagogical, in that it starts with adiabatic evolution of single flavors from the Sun's center, with $\theta_{13}$ set to zero, and progresses to fully realistic processing of the flavor ratios expected in WIMP decay, from the Sun's core to the Earth. In the fully realistic calculation, non-adiabatic level-crossing is included, as are possible nonzero values for $\theta_{13}$ and the CP-violating phase $\delta$. Due to resonance enhancement in matter, nonzero values of $\theta_{13}$ even smaller than a degree can noticeably affect flavor propagation. Both normal and inverted neutrino-mass hierarchies are considered. Our main conclusion is that measuring flavor ratios (in addition to energy spectra) of $\agt$ GeV solar neutrinos can provide discrinination between WIMP models. In particular, we demonstrate the flavor differences at Earth for neutrinos from the two main classes of WIMP final states, namely $W^+ W^-$ and 95% $b \bar{b}$ + 5% $\tau^+\tau^-$. Conversely, if WIMP properties were to be learned from production in future accelerators, then the flavor ratios of $\agt$ GeV solar neutrinos might be useful for inferring $\theta_{13}$ and the mass hierarchy.
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All Related Versions
- Version 1, 2007-08-08, ArXiv
- Published version: Physical Review D, 77 (12), 125004.
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