2014/09/30 by Daniel Boyanovsky, D. Boyanovsky · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Cascade #Degenerate energy levels #Meson #Mixing (physics) #Neutrino #Neutrino Physics Research #Neutrino oscillation #Nuclear physics #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Pseudoscalar #Quantum mechanics #Sterile neutrino #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.90.105024
published as Phys. Rev. D 90, 105024 (2014) · updated references, more comments, same results, published version. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1406.5739
arxiv created 2014/11/20 · openalex publication_date 2014/11/20 · arxiv updated 2014/11/24 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Some extensions beyond the Standard Model propose the existence of nearly degenerate heavy sterile neutrinos. If kinematically allowed these can be resonantly produced and decay in a cascade to common final states. The common decay channels lead to mixing of the heavy sterile neutrino states and interference effects. We implement nonperturbative methods to study the dynamics of the cascade decay to common final states, which features similarities but also noteworthy differences with the case of neutral meson mixing. We show that mixing and oscillations among the nearly degenerate sterile neutrinos can be detected as quantum beats in the distribution of final states produced from their decay. These oscillations would be a telltale signal of mixing between heavy sterile neutrinos. We study in detail the case of two nearly degenerate sterile neutrinos produced in the decay of pseudoscalar mesons and decaying into a purely leptonic ``visible'' channel: \ensuremathνh\ensuremath→e+e^\ensuremath-\ensuremathνa. Possible cosmological implications for the effective number of neutrinos Neff are discussed.