New Physics in Astrophysical Neutrino Flavor (NuFact 2016)

TL;DR

This paper investigates how new physics operators could alter the flavor composition of ultra high energy astrophysical neutrinos, showing that effects are maximized within current experimental limits but constrained by initial conditions.

Contribution

It introduces a general framework for analyzing new physics effects on neutrino flavor content using effective operators, providing bounds on flavor modifications at Earth.

Findings

Maximal flavor effects occur at current operator limits.

Flavor content at Earth is constrained by initial flavor states.

New physics can significantly alter neutrino flavor ratios.

Abstract

Astrophysical neutrinos are powerful tools to study fundamental properties of particle physics. We perform a general new physics study on ultra high energy neutrino flavor content by introducing effective operators. We find that at the current limits on these operators, new physics terms cause maximal effects on the flavor content, however, the flavor content at Earth is confined to a region related to the initial flavor content.