Neutrinophilic Axion-Like Dark Matter

TL;DR

This paper explores how axion-like particles could interact with neutrinos, potentially altering neutrino oscillations and impacting astrophysical observations, with a focus on the sensitivity of the DUNE experiment.

Contribution

It introduces a model of derivative coupling between ALPs and neutrinos and analyzes its effects on neutrino oscillations and astrophysical phenomena.

Findings

Potential modifications to neutrino oscillation patterns.

Sensitivity estimates for DUNE to ALP-neutrino coupling.

Implications for astrophysical observations of dark matter.

Abstract

The axion-like particles (ALPs) are very good candidates of the cosmological dark matter, which can exist in many extensions of the standard model (SM). The mass range of the ALPs as the dark matter can extend from a sub-eV scale to almost $10^{-22}~{\rm eV}$. On the other hand, the neutrinos are found to be massive and the SM must be extended to explain the sub-eV neutrino masses. It becomes very interesting to consider an exclusive coupling between these two low scale frontiers that are both beyond the SM. The propagation of neutrinos inside the Milky Way would undergo the coherent forward scattering effect with the ALP background, and the neutrino oscillation behavior can be modified by the ALP-induced potential. Assuming a derivative coupling between the ALP and the three generations of active neutrinos, possible impacts on the neutrino oscillation experiments have been explored in this paper. In particular, we have numerically studied the sensitivity of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). The astrophysical consequences of such coupling have also been investigated systematically.