Probing scalar non-standard interaction of supernova neutrinos in next-generation neutrino experiments

TL;DR

This paper investigates how flavor-conserving scalar non-standard interactions can alter supernova neutrino fluxes and affect neutrino mass ordering measurements in next-generation experiments like DUNE and Hyper-Kamiokande.

Contribution

It introduces the impact of scalar-mediated non-standard neutrino interactions on supernova neutrino fluxes and explores their implications for neutrino mass ordering determination.

Findings

Scalar interactions can invert neutrino mass eigenstates in supernovae.

Scalar interactions create degeneracies in neutrino mass ordering measurements.

Hyper-Kamiokande can help resolve these degeneracies.

Abstract

A new neutrino-matter interaction can potentially affect neutrino propagation through matter. In this work, we explore the impact of a flavor-conserving scalar-mediated non-standard neutrino interaction in the supernova neutrino flux. We observe that the presence of a scalar interaction involving muon and tau neutrinos (parameterized as $\eta_{\mu\mu}$ and $\eta_{\tau\tau}$, respectively) can invert the neutrino mass eigenstate in which three neutrino flavor states are produced inside the supernova core, resulting in a significant modification of the electron neutrino flux from the supernova reaching the Earth. In the context of the DUNE experiment, we estimate the number of supernova neutrino events in the presence of scalar non-standard neutrino interaction $\eta_{\mu\mu}$ or $\eta_{\tau\tau}$ and contrast with the case without scalar-mediated non-standard interactions. Our results indicate that such scalar interactions introduce a new degeneracy in the measurement of neutrino mass ordering from supernova neutrinos. We show how the $\bar{\nu}_e$ event distribution in Hyper-Kamiokande experiment may help resolve the degeneracy between a model with new scalar interactions for normal ordered neutrino masses and the standard model with inverted mass ordering for a galactic supernova.