Researchers Carlos Henrique de Lima, David McKeen, John Ng, and Douglas Tuckler, affiliated with various institutions including the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of British Columbia, have recently published a study exploring the potential of hadronic probes in investigating non-standard neutrino interactions. Their work, titled “Hadronic Probes of Non-Standard Neutrino Interactions,” was published in the journal Physical Review D.
The study focuses on leptonic decays of hadrons as a means to detect light neutrinophilic scalars, which are hypothetical particles that could mediate enhanced neutrino self-interactions. These scalars, if they exist, could be emitted during processes involving neutrinos, altering the expected decay products and creating distinctive spectral distortions. The researchers specifically examined the effects of such scalars on charged pion decay and nuclear electron capture decay, considering both on-shell and off-shell scalar emission, as well as the necessary loop-induced renormalization to address divergences.
Using their computational results, the team assessed the projected sensitivity of the PIONEER experiment and evaluated the current and future reach of the BeEST experiment. Both of these experiments are designed to study hadron decays with high precision. The researchers found that the low-energy spectral tails produced by the emission of light neutrinophilic scalars could serve as a distinctive signal, making upcoming hadron decay experiments powerful tools for probing these light mediators of non-standard neutrino self-interactions.
The practical applications of this research for the energy sector are not immediately apparent, as the study is primarily focused on fundamental particle physics. However, a deeper understanding of neutrino interactions and the potential existence of new particles could have broader implications for our understanding of the universe and the fundamental forces that govern it. In the long term, such research could contribute to the development of new technologies or approaches in energy production, storage, or transmission, although any such applications would likely be many years in the future.
This article is based on research available at arXiv.