Impact of Beyond the Standard Model Physics in the Detection of the Cosmic Neutrino Background

Abstract

We discuss the effect of Beyond the Standard Model charged current interactions on the detection of the Cosmic Neutrino Background by neutrino capture on tritium in a PTOLEMY-like detector. We show that the total capture rate can be substantially modified for Dirac neutrinos if scalar or tensor right-chiral currents, with strength consistent with current experimental bounds, are at play. We find that the total capture rate for Dirac neutrinos, $\hat{I}{“}_{\mathrm{D}}^{\mathrm{BSM}}$, can be between 0.3 to 2.2 of what is expected for Dirac neutrinos in the Standard Model, $\hat{I}{“}_{\mathrm{D}}^{\mathrm{SM}}$, so that it can be made as large as the rate expected for Majorana neutrinos with only Standard Model interactions. A non-negligible primordial abundance of right-handed neutrinos can only worsen the situation, increasing $\hat{I}{“}_{\mathrm{D}}^{\mathrm{BSM}}$ by 30 to 90\%. On the other hand, if a much lower total rate is measured than what is expected for $\hat{I}{“}_{\mathrm{D}}^{\mathrm{SM}}$, it may be a sign of new physics.

Version published in JHEP. Some comments and references added