The potential of directional neutrino detection to observe neutrino spin oscillations
Konstantin A. Kouzakov, Fedor M. Lazarev, Alexander I. Studenikin
TLDR
Directional neutrino detection can uniquely observe neutrino spin oscillations by detecting azimuthal asymmetry in recoil momenta from elastic scattering.
Key contributions
- Neutrino magnetic moments cause spin oscillations, affecting cosmic neutrino flux and scattering.
- Arbitrary spin-flavor states of incoming neutrinos influence low-energy elastic scattering processes.
- Superposition of left- and right-handed helicity states creates azimuthal asymmetry in recoil momenta.
- Numerical calculations confirm this azimuthal asymmetry for scattering on electrons, protons, 40Ar, and 132Xe.
Why it matters
Observing neutrino spin oscillations is crucial for understanding fundamental neutrino properties, like their magnetic moment, which extends the Standard Model. This work provides a novel, experimentally viable method using directional detection to uncover these elusive phenomena.
Original Abstract
A nonzero neutrino magnetic moment arises already in the minimally extended Standard Model with right-handed massive Dirac neutrinos. The well-known consequence of the neutrino magnetic moment is the phenomenon of neutrino spin oscillations in a magnetic field. It can manifest itself not only as a lack in the flux of active cosmic neutrinos arriving on Earth but also as characteristic features in low-energy neutrino elastic scattering processes. Following our approach developed earlier, in this work we study the influence of arbitrary spin-flavor state of incoming neutrino on low-energy neutrino scattering off different particles in a detector. We demonstrate that superposition of left- and right-handed helicity neutrino states gives rise to an azimuthal asymmetry in the angular distribution of the recoil momenta. We present numerical calculations for elastic neutrino scattering on electrons, protons and 40Ar and 132Xe nuclei, demonstrating the azimuthal-asymmetry effect. Our results indicate the unique potential of directional neutrino detection to observe the neutrino spin oscillations.
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