Matter Enhanced Neutrino Oscillations with a Realistic Earth Density Profile

TL;DR

This paper studies how realistic Earth density profiles affect neutrino oscillations, showing that simplified models can approximate real conditions and identifying resonant enhancements in specific oscillation channels.

Contribution

It demonstrates that a mantle-core-mantle step function effectively models Earth's density and reveals potential resonant effects on neutrino oscillations in this context.

Findings

Realistic Earth density can be approximated by a mantle-core-mantle step function.

Resonant enhancement affects the $ u_ o u_ au$ oscillation channel.

The study applies to both two and three neutrino scenarios.

Abstract

We have investigated matter enhanced neutrino oscillations with a mantle-core-mantle step function and a realistic Earth matter density profile in both a two and a three neutrino scenario. We found that the realistic Earth matter density profile can be well approximated with the mantle-core-mantle step function and that there could be an influence on the oscillation channel $\nu_\mu \to \nu_\tau$ due to resonant enhancement of one of the mixing angles.