Interplay of non-standard interactions and Earth's composition in atmospheric neutrino oscillations

Abstract

Many geophysical and geochemical phenomena in the Earth's interior are related to physical and chemical processes in the outer core and the core-mantle boundary, which are directly linked to the isotopic composition. Determining the composition using standard geophysical methods has been challenging. Atmospheric neutrino oscillations, influenced by their weak interactions with terrestrial matter, offer a new way to gather valuable information about the Earth's internal structure and, in particular, to constrain the composition of the core. If neutrinos had as yet unknown non-standard interactions (NSI), this could affect their propagation in matter and consequently impact studies of Earth's composition using neutrino oscillation tomography. This study focuses on scalar-mediated NSI and their potential impact on atmospheric neutrino oscillations, which could obscure information about the hydrogen content in the outer core. In turn, compositional uncertainties could affect the characterization of NSI parameters. The analysis is based on a Monte-Carlo simulation of the energy distribution and azimuthal angles of neutrino-generated $\mu$ events. Using a model of the Earth consisting of 55 concentric shells with constant densities determined from the PREM, we evaluate the effect on the number of events due to changes in the outer core composition (Z/A)${}_{oc}$ and the NSI strength parameter $\epsilon$. To examine the detection capability to observe such variations, we consider regions in the plane of (Z/A)${}_{oc}$ and $\epsilon$ where the statistical significance of the discrepancies between the modified Earth model and the reference model is less than $1\sigma$.

arXiv comment26 figures and 28 pages, including references. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2207.11257

References in corpus (27)

• The fate of hints: updated global analysis of three-flavor neutrino oscillations
• 2020 Global reassessment of the neutrino oscillation picture
• From eV to EeV: Neutrino Cross Sections Across Energy Scales
• Present and Future Bounds on Non-Standard Neutrino Interactions
• Status of non-standard neutrino interactions
• Atmospheric neutrino flux above 1 GeV
• General bounds on non-standard neutrino interactions
• Non standard neutrino interactions
• Updated Constraints on Non-Standard Interactions from Global Analysis of Oscillation Data
• Three flavor neutrino oscillations in matter
• Addendum to: Global constraints on absolute neutrino masses and their ordering
• CP-Violating Neutrino Non-Standard Interactions in Long-Baseline-Accelerator Data
• Non-standard neutrino interactions as a solution to the NO$\nu$A and T2K discrepancy
• Radiography of the Earth's Core and Mantle with Atmospheric Neutrinos
• Neutrino tomography of the Earth
• Atmospheric Neutrino Oscillations for Earth Tomography
• Neutrino Absorption Tomography of the Earth's Interior using Isotropic Ultra-high Energy Flux
• On the Determination of Leptonic CP Violation and Neutrino Mass Ordering in Presence of Non-Standard Interactions: Present Status
• Spectrometry of the Earth using Neutrino Oscillations
• Neutrino tomography - Learning about the Earth's interior using the propagation of neutrinos
• Neutrino mass ordering obscured by non-standard interactions
• DUNE atmospheric neutrinos: Earth Tomography
• On Neutrino Absorption Tomography of the Earth
• Neutrino oscillation tomography of the Earth with KM3NeT-ORCA
• Sensitivity on Earth Core and Mantle densities using Atmospheric Neutrinos
• Oscillation tomografy study of Earth's composition and density with atmospheric neutrinos
• KM3NeT/ORCA: status and perspectives for neutrino oscillation and mass hierarchy measurements