We present the Bayesian method for evaluating the evidence for a non-zero value of the leptonic mixing angle theta(13) and CP-violation in neutrino oscillation experiments. This is an application of the well-established method of Bayesian model selection, of which we give a concise and pedagogical overview. When comparing the hypothesis theta(13) = 0 with hypotheses where theta(13) > 0 using global data but excluding the recent reactor measurements, we obtain only a weak preference for a non-zero theta(13), even though the significance is over 3 sigma. We then add the reactor measurements one by one and show how the evidence for theta(13) > 0 quickly increases. When including the DOUBLE CHOOZ, DAYA BAY, and RENO data, the evidence becomes overwhelming with a posterior probability of the hypothesis theta(13) = 0 below 10(-11). Owing to the small amount of information on the CP-phase delta, very similar evidences are obtained for the CP-conserving and CP-violating hypotheses. Hence, there is, not unexpectedly, neither evidence for nor against leptonic CP-violation. However, when future experiments aiming to search for CP-violation have started taking data, this question will be of great importance and the method described here can be used as an important complement to standard analyses.
We perform a global fit of the most relevant neutrinoless double beta decay experiments within the standard model with massive Majorana neutrinos. Using Bayesian inference makes it possible to take into account the theoretical uncertainties on the nuclear matrix elements in a fully consistent way. First, we analyze the data used to claim the observation of neutrinoless double beta decay in Ge-76, and find strong evidence (according to Jeffrey's scale) for a peak in the spectrum and moderate evidence for that the peak is actually close to the energy expected for the neutrinoless decay. We also find a significantly larger statistical error than the original analysis, which we include in the comparison with other data. Then, we statistically test the consistency between this claim with that of recent measurements using Xe-136. We find that the two data sets are about 40 to 80 times more probable under the assumption that they are inconsistent, depending on the nuclear matrix element uncertainties and the prior on the smallest neutrino mass. Hence, there is moderate to strong evidence of incompatibility, and for equal prior probabilities the posterior probability of compatibility is between 1.3% and 2.5%. If one, despite such evidence for incompatibility, combines the two data sets, we find that the total evidence of neutrinoless double beta decay is negligible. If one ignores the claim, there is weak evidence against the existence of the decay. We also perform approximate frequentist tests of compatibility for fixed ratios of the nuclear matrix elements, as well as of the no signal hypothesis. Generalization to other sets of experiments as well as other mechanisms mediating the decay is possible.
Standardmodellen för partikelfysik beskriver den stora majoriteten data från partikelfysikexperimentutmärkt. Den kan emellertid inte i sin enklaste form beskrivadet faktum att neutriner är massiva partiklar och leptonsmakerna är blandande,vilket krävs enligt observationerna av neutrinooscillationer. Därför måste standardmodellenutökas för att ta hänsyn till detta, vilket öppnar upp möjligheten att utforska nya och intressanta fysikaliska fenomen.
Det finns många föreslagna modeller för massiva neutriner. De enklaste av dessakan beskriva observationerna med endast ett fåtal effektiva parametrar. Dessutom är neutriner de enda kända befintliga partiklar som har potentialen att vara sinaegna antipartiklar, en möjlighet som aktivt undersöks genom experiment på neutrinolöst dubbelt betasönderfall. I denna avhandling analyserar vi dessa enkla modellermed Bayesisk inferens och begränsningar från neutrinorelaterade experiment och undersöker även potentialen för framtida experiment på neutrinolöst dubbelt betasönderfall att bergänsa andra typer av ny fysik.
Även mer avancerade teoretiska modeller för neutrinomassor har föreslagits, med seesawmodeller som en särskilt populär grupp av modeller där nya tunga partiklargenererar neutrinomassor. Vi studerar seesawmodeller vid låga energier, i synnerhetneutrinoparametrarnas resulterande energiberoende, vilka inkluderar nya partiklarmed massor inom räckh°all för nuvarande och framtida experiment såsom LHC.
Experiments on neutrino oscillations have confirmed that neutrinos have small, but non-zero masses, and that the interacting neutrino states do not have definite masses, but are mixtures of such states.The seesaw models make up a group of popular models describing the small neutrino masses and the corresponding mixing.In these models, new, heavy fields are introduced and the neutrino masses are suppressed by the ratio between the electroweak scale and the large masses of the new fields. Usually, the new fields introduced have masses far above the electroweak scale, outside the reach of any foreseeable experiments, making these versions of seesaw models essentially untestable. However, there are also so-called low-scale seesaw models, where the new particles have masses above the electroweak scale, but within the reach of future experiments, such as the LHC.In quantum field theories, quantum corrections generally introduce an energy-scale dependence on all their parameters, described by the renormalization group equations. In this thesis, the energy-scale dependence of the neutrino parameters in two low-scale seesaw models, the low-scale type I and inverse seesaw models, are considered. Also, the question of whether the neutrinos are Majorana particles, \ie , their own antiparticles, has not been decided experimentally. Future experiments on neutrinoless double beta decay could confirm the Majorana nature of neutrinos. However, there could also be additional contributions to the decay, which are not directly related to neutrino masses. We have investigated the possible future bounds on the strength of such additional contributions to neutrinoless double beta decay, depending on the outcome of ongoing and planned experiments related to neutrino masses.
Unparticle physics is the physics of a hidden sector which is conformal in the infrared and coupled to the Standard Model. The concept of unparticle physics was introduced by Howard Georgi in 2007 and has since then received a lot of attention, including many studies of its phenomenology in different situations. After a review of the necessary background material, the implications of the self-interactions of the unparticle sector for LHC physics is studied. More specifically, analyses of four-body final states consisting of photons and leptons are performed. The results are upper bounds on the total cross sections as well as distributions of transverse momentum.
We perform a detailed study of the renormalization group equations in the inverse seesaw model. Especially, we derive compact analytical formulas for the running of the neutrino parameters in the standard model and the minimal supersymmetric standard model, and illustrate that, due to large Yukawa coupling corrections, significant running effects on the leptonic mixing angles can be naturally obtained in the proximity of the electroweak scale, perhaps even within the reach of the LHC. In general, if the mass spectrum of the light neutrinos is nearly degenerate, the running effects are enhanced to experimentally accessible levels, well suitable for the investigation of the underlying dynamics behind the neutrino mass generation and the lepton flavor structure. In addition, the effects of the seesaw thresholds are discussed, and a brief comparison to other seesaw models is carried out.
We investigate numerically how accurately one could constrain the strengths of different short-range contributions to neutrino-less double beta decay in effective field theory. Depending on the outcome of near-future experiments yielding information on the neutrino masses, the corresponding bounds or estimates can be stronger or weaker. A particularly interesting case, resulting in strong bounds, would be a positive signal of neutrino-less double beta decay that is consistent with complementary information from neutrino oscillation experiments, kinematical determinations of the neutrino mass, and measurements of the sum of light neutrino masses from cosmological observations. The keys to more robust bounds are improvements of the knowledge of the nuclear physics involved and a better experimental accuracy.
We investigate the effect of unparticle self-interactions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Especially, we discuss the three-point correlation function, which is determined by conformal symmetry up to a constant, and study its relation to processes with four-particle final states. These processes could be used as a favorable way to look for unparticle physics, and for weak enough couplings to the standard model, even the only way. We find updated upper bounds on the cross sections for unparticle-mediated 4 gamma final states at the LHC and novel upper bounds for the corresponding 2 gamma 2l and 4l final states. The size of the allowed cross sections obtained are comparably large for large values of the scaling dimension of the unparticle sector, but they decrease with decreasing values of this parameter. In addition, we present relevant distributions for the different final states, enabling the possible identification of the unparticle scaling dimension if there was to be a large number of events of such final states at the LHC.
We show that, in the low-scale type-I seesaw model, renormalization group running of neutrino parameters may lead to significant modifications of the leptonic mixing angles in view of so-called seesaw threshold effects. Especially, we derive analytical formulas for radiative corrections to neutrino parameters in crossing the different seesaw thresholds, and show that there may exist enhancement factors efficiently boosting the renormalization group running of the leptonic mixing angles. We find that, as a result of the seesaw threshold corrections to the leptonic mixing angles, various flavor symmetric mixing patterns (e.g., bi-maximal and tri-bimaximal mixing patterns) can be easily accommodated at relatively low energy scales, which is well within the reach of running and forthcoming experiments (e.g., the LHC).