Alternative Mechanisms Investigation for the Results of Neutrino Oscillation in the MINOS Experiment.

• Grant number: 07/08188-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: May 01, 2008
• End date: February 29, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics - Elementary Particle Physics and Fields
• Principal Investigator: Carlos Ourivio Escobar
• Grantee: João de Abreu Barbosa Coelho
• Host Institution: Instituto de Física Gleb Wataghin (IFGW). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The extraordinary success of the so-called "Standard Model of Electroweak Interactions" is, paradoxically, a source of embarrassment for the contemporary Particle Physics or High Energy Physics, as the model requires a large number of constants which are, in principle, arbitrary. The vast majority of these constants is related to the Yukawa sector of the Lagrangean of the standard model, and therefore related to the mechanism of generating mass that leads to the not yet discovered Higgs scalar. Strictly speaking, within the arbitrary constants of the standard model we should not put those which lead to the masses and mixing angles of the neutrino sector, since, being the neutrino field left handed, a conventional Dirac mass term, with Yukawa coupling, is not possible. To introduce the masses, without putting right handed singlets, we would have to introduce a non-renormalizable term, which, after the spontaneous symmetry breaking, leads to a Majorana mass. This fact clearly shows that the existence of neutrinos with mass, evidenced by the extraordinary experimental results of solar and atmospheric neutrinos, neutrino oscillations from nuclear reactors and accelerators, signals, experimentally, for the first time, that there is another dynamic acting in an energy scale beyond that where the standard model established itself with such success. The neutrino physics, being held now can offer us the much awaited window to this dynamic beyond the standard model. The mere fact that neutrinos have mass and are subject to the mixture of flavors, in the interpretation now more accepted of all the data mentioned above, already indicates new physics, however there is still room for other interpretations of this data set and others which will still be obtained in today experiments: what is the role of decoherence effects in oscillation experiments? Can one observe the quantum entanglement in neutrino oscillations? What are the real chances of detecting CP violation in current and next generation experiments? This project seeks to investigate these questions through analysis of data from the MINOS experiment, in Fermilab.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

COELHO, João de Abreu Barbosa. Investigation of alternative mechanisms to neutrino oscillations in the MINOS experiment. 2012. Doctoral Thesis - Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Física Gleb Wataghin Campinas, SP.