New limits on neutrino decay from high-energy astrophysical neutrinos

TL;DR

This paper establishes new bounds on neutrino decay lifetimes using high-energy astrophysical neutrinos, accounting for astrophysical uncertainties, and forecasts significant improvements with future detectors.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive bounds on neutrino decay lifetimes from astrophysical neutrinos, incorporating astrophysical unknowns and detection nuances.

Findings

Current bounds disfavor lifetimes less than 20-450 seconds per eV mass.

Upcoming detectors could improve bounds by a factor of 10.

Neutrinos from NGC 1068 could constrain lifetimes to 100-5000 seconds per eV with future data.

Abstract

Since neutrinos have mass differences, they could decay into one another. But their lifetimes are likely long, even when shortened by new physics, so decay likely impacts neutrinos only during long trips. This makes high-energy astrophysical neutrinos, traveling for up to billions of light-years, sensitive probes of decay. However, their sensitivity must be tempered by reality. We derive from them thorough bounds on the neutrino lifetimes accounting for critical astrophysical unknowns and the nuances of neutrino detection. Using the diffuse neutrino flux, we disfavor lifetimes $\tau \lesssim 20$-450 s $(m/{\rm eV})$, based on present IceCube data, and forecast factor-of-10 improvements by upcoming detectors. Using, for the first time, neutrinos from the active galaxy NGC 1068, extant unknowns preclude placing lifetime bounds today, but upcoming detectors could disfavor $\tau \sim 100$-5000 s $(m/{\rm eV})$.