Shedding light on neutrino self-interactions with solar antineutrino searches

TL;DR

This paper investigates how neutrino self-interactions could produce detectable solar antineutrinos, offering a new way to constrain such interactions and address cosmological tensions.

Contribution

It systematically analyzes various models of neutrino self-interactions and evaluates their potential signals in upcoming neutrino detectors.

Findings

Solar antineutrino fluxes can be significantly enhanced by neutrino self-interactions.

Upcoming detectors like JUNO and Hyper-Kamiokande can set strong constraints on these interactions.

Results can help address the Hubble tension through new physics insights.

Abstract

Solar antineutrinos are absent in the standard solar model prediction. Consequently, solar antineutrino searches emerge as a powerful tool to probe new physics capable of converting neutrinos into antineutrinos. In this study, we highlight that neutrino self-interactions, recently gaining considerable attention due to their cosmological and astrophysical implications, can lead to significant solar antineutrino production. We systematically explore various types of four-fermion effective operators and light scalar mediators for neutrino self-interactions. By estimating the energy spectra and event rates of solar antineutrinos at prospective neutrino detectors such as JUNO, Hyper-Kamiokande, and THEIA, we reveal that solar antineutrino searches can impose stringent constraints on neutrino self-interactions and probe the parameter space favored by the Hubble tension.