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Mauricio Bustamante

Publications and source records attributed to Mauricio Bustamante.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
arXiv2019

Echo Technique to Distinguish Flavors of Astrophysical Neutrinos

The flavor composition of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos is a rich observable. However, present analyses cannot effectively distinguish particle showers induced by $ν_e$ versus $ν_τ$. We show that this can be accomplished by measuring the intensities of the delayed, collective light emission from muon decays and neutron captures, which are, on average, greater for $ν_τ$ than for $ν_e$. This new technique would significantly improve tests of the nature of astrophysical sources and of neutrino properties. We discuss the promising prospects for implementing it in IceCube and other detectors.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2019

Open Questions in Cosmic-Ray Research at Ultrahigh Energies

We review open questions and prospects for progress in ultrahigh-energy cosmic ray (UHECR) research, based on a series of discussions that took place during the `The High-Energy Universe: Gamma-Ray, Neutrino, and Cosmic-ray Astronomy' MIAPP workshop in 2018. Specifically, we overview open questions on the origin of the bulk of UHECRs, the UHECR mass composition, the origin of the end of the cosmic-ray spectrum, the transition from Galactic to extragalactic cosmic rays, the effect of magnetic fields on the trajectories of UHECRs, anisotropy expectations for specific astrophysical scenarios, hadronic interactions, and prospects for discovering neutral particles as well as new physics at ultrahigh energies. We also briefly present upcoming and proposed UHECR experiments and discuss their projected science reach.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2019

Universe's Worth of Electrons to Probe Long-Range Interactions of High-Energy Astrophysical Neutrinos

Astrophysical searches for new long-range interactions complement collider searches for new short-range interactions. Conveniently, neutrino flavor oscillations are keenly sensitive to the existence of long-ranged flavored interactions between neutrinos and electrons, motivated by lepton-number symmetries of the Standard Model. For the first time, we probe them using TeV-PeV astrophysical neutrinos and accounting for all large electron repositories in the local and distant Universe. The high energies and colossal number of electrons grant us unprecedented sensitivity to the new interaction, even if it is extraordinarily feeble. Based on IceCube results for the flavor composition of astrophysical neutrinos, we set the ultimate bounds on long-range neutrino flavored interactions.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2019

Extracting the Energy-Dependent Neutrino-Nucleon Cross Section Above 10 TeV Using IceCube Showers

Neutrinos are key to probing the deep structure of matter and the high-energy Universe. Yet, until recently, their interactions had only been measured at laboratory energies up to about 350 GeV. An opportunity to measure their interactions at higher energies opened up with the detection of high-energy neutrinos in IceCube, partially of astrophysical origin. Scattering off matter inside the Earth affects the distribution of their arrival directions --- from this, we extract the neutrino-nucleon cross section at energies from 18 TeV to 2 PeV, in four energy bins, in spite of uncertainties in the neutrino flux. Using six years of public IceCube High-Energy Starting Events, we explicitly show for the first time that the energy dependence of the cross section above 18 TeV agrees with the predicted softer-than-linear dependence, and reaffirm the absence of new physics that would make the cross section rise sharply, up to a center-of-mass energy of ~1 TeV.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2019

Symmetries of exotic negatively curved manifolds

Let $N$ be a smooth manifold that is homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to a closed hyperbolic manifold $M$. In this paper, we study the extent to which $N$ admits as much symmetry as $M$. Our main results are examples of $N$ that exhibit two extremes of behavior. On the one hand, we find $N$ with maximal symmetry, i.e. Isom($M$) acts on $N$ by isometries with respect to some negatively curved metric on $N$. For these examples, Isom($M$) can be made arbitrarily large. On the other hand, we find $N$ with little symmetry, i.e. no subgroup of Isom($M$) of "small" index acts by diffeomorphisms of $N$. The construction of these examples incorporates a variety of techniques including smoothing theory and the Belolipetsky-Lubotzky method for constructing hyperbolic manifolds with a prescribed isometry group.

math.GT↗
arXiv2018

Unitarity Bounds of Astrophysical Neutrinos

The flavor composition of astrophysical neutrinos observed at neutrino telescopes is related to the initial composition at their sources via oscillation-averaged flavor transitions. If the time evolution of the neutrino flavor states is unitary, the probability of neutrinos changing flavor is solely determined by the unitary mixing matrix that relates the neutrino flavor and propagation eigenstates. In this paper we derive general bounds on the flavor composition of TeV-PeV astrophysical neutrinos based on unitarity constraints. These bounds are useful for studying the flavor composition of high-energy neutrinos, where energy-dependent nonstandard flavor mixing can dominate over the standard mixing observed in accelerator, reactor, and atmospheric neutrino oscillations.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2018

On negatively curved bundles with hyperbolic fibers outside the Igusa stable range

We prove that the Teichmüller space $\mathcal{T}^{<0}(M)$ of negatively curved metrics on a hyperbolic manifold $M$ has nontrivial $i$-th rational homotopy groups for some $i> \dim M$. Moreover, some elements of infinite order in $π_i B\mbox{Diff}(M)$ can be represented by bundles over $S^i$ with fiberwise negatively curved metrics.

math.GT↗
arXiv2017

The Giant Radio Array for Neutrino Detection (GRAND): Present and Perspectives

The Giant Radio Array for Neutrino Detection (GRAND) aims at detecting ultra-high energy extraterrestrial neutrinos via the extensive air showers induced by the decay of tau leptons created in the interaction of neutrinos under the Earth's surface. Consisting of an array of $\sim10^5$ radio antennas deployed over $\sim 2\times10^5\,\rm {km}^2$, GRAND plans to reach, for the first time, an all-flavor sensitivity of $\sim1.5\times10^{-10} \,\rm GeV\, cm^{-2} \,s^{-1}\, sr^{-1}$ above $5\times10^{17}$ eV and a sub-degree angular resolution, beyond the reach of other planned detectors. We describe here preliminary designs and simulation results, plans for the ongoing, staged approach to the construction of GRAND, and the rich research program made possible by GRAND's design sensitivity and angular resolution.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2017

The Giant Radio Array for Neutrino Detection

The Giant Radio Array for Neutrino Detection (GRAND) is a planned array of ~200 000 radio antennas deployed over ~200 000 km2 in a mountainous site. It aims primarly at detecting high-energy neutrinos via the observation of extensive air showers induced by the decay in the atmosphere of taus produced by the interaction of cosmic neutrinos under the Earth surface. GRAND aims at reaching a neutrino sensitivity of 5.10$^{11}$ E$^{-2}$ GeV$^{-1}$cm$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$sr$^{-1}$ above 3.10$^{16}$ eV. This ensures the detection of cosmogenic neutrinos in the most pessimistic source models, and ~50 events per year are expected for the standard models. The instrument will also detect UHECRs and possibly FRBs. Here we show how our preliminary design should enable us to reach our sensitivity goals, and discuss the steps to be taken to achieve GRAND.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2017

Multi-messenger light curves from gamma-ray bursts in the internal shock model

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are promising as sources of neutrinos and cosmic rays. In the internal shock scenario, blobs of plasma emitted from a central engine collide within a relativistic jet and form shocks, leading to particle acceleration and emission. Motivated by present experimental constraints and sensitivities, we improve the predictions of particle emission by investigating time-dependent effects from multiple shocks. We produce synthetic light curves with different variability timescales that stem from properties of the central engine. For individual GRBs, qualitative conclusions about model parameters, neutrino production efficiency, and delays in high-energy gamma rays can be deduced from inspection of the gamma-ray light curves. GRBs with fast time variability without additional prominent pulse structure tend to be efficient neutrino emitters, whereas GRBs with fast variability modulated by a broad pulse structure can be inefficient neutrino emitters and produce delayed high-energy gamma-ray signals. Our results can be applied to quantitative tests of the GRB origin of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, and have the potential to impact current and future multi-messenger searches.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2017

Testing decay of astrophysical neutrinos with incomplete information

Neutrinos mix and have mass differences, so decays from one to another must occur. But how fast? The best direct limits on non-radiative decays, based on solar and atmospheric neutrinos, are weak, $τ\gtrsim 10^{-3}$ s ($m$/eV) or much worse. Greatly improved sensitivity, $τ\sim 10^3$ s ($m$/eV), will eventually be obtained using neutrinos from distant astrophysical sources, but large uncertainties --- in neutrino properties, source properties, and detection aspects --- do not allow this yet. However, there is a way forward now. We show that IceCube diffuse neutrino measurements, supplemented by improvements expected in the near term, can increase sensitivity to $τ\sim 10$ s ($m$/eV) for all neutrino mass eigenstates. We provide a roadmap for the necessary analyses and show how to manage the many uncertainties. If limits are set, this would definitively rule out the long-considered possibility that neutrino decay affects solar, atmospheric, or terrestrial neutrino experiments.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2016

Cosmogenic Neutrinos Challenge the Cosmic Ray Proton Dip Model

The origin and composition of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) remain a mystery. The proton dip model describes their spectral shape in the energy range above $10^9$ GeV by pair production and photohadronic interactions with the cosmic microwave background. The photohadronic interactions also produce cosmogenic neutrinos peaking around $10^9$ GeV. We test whether this model is still viable in light of recent UHECR spectrum measurements from the Telescope Array experiment, and upper limits on the cosmogenic neutrino flux from IceCube. While two-parameter fits have been already presented, we perform a full scan of the three main physical model parameters: source redshift evolution, injected proton maximal energy, and spectral index. We find qualitatively different conclusions compared to earlier two-parameter fits in the literature: a mild preference for a maximal energy cutoff at the sources instead of the Greisen--Zatsepin--Kuzmin (GZK) cutoff, hard injection spectra, and strong source evolution. The predicted cosmogenic neutrino flux exceeds the IceCube limit for any parameter combination. As a result, the proton dip model is challenged at more than 95\% C.L. This is strong evidence against this model independent of mass composition measurements.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2015

Theoretically palatable flavor combinations of astrophysical neutrinos

The flavor composition of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos can reveal the physics governing their production, propagation, and interaction. The IceCube Collaboration has published the first experimental determination of the ratio of the flux in each flavor to the total. We present, as a theoretical counterpart, new results for the allowed ranges of flavor ratios at Earth for arbitrary flavor ratios in the sources. Our results will allow IceCube to more quickly identify when their data imply standard physics, a general class of new physics with arbitrary (incoherent) combinations of mass eigenstates, or new physics that goes beyond that, e.g., with terms that dominate the Hamiltonian at high energy.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2015

Neutrino and cosmic-ray emission from multiple internal shocks in gamma-ray bursts

Gamma-ray bursts are short-lived, luminous explosions at cosmological distances, thought to originate from relativistic jets launched at the deaths of massive stars. They are among the prime candidates to produce the observed cosmic rays at the highest energies. Recent neutrino data have, however, started to constrain this possibility in the simplest models with only one emission zone. In the classical theory of gamma-ray bursts, it is expected that particles are accelerated at mildly relativistic shocks generated by the collisions of material ejected from a central engine. We consider neutrino and cosmic-ray emission from multiple emission regions since these internal collisions must occur at very different radii, from below the photosphere all the way out to the circumburst medium, as a consequence of the efficient dissipation of kinetic energy. We demonstrate that the different messengers originate from different collision radii, which means that multi-messenger observations open windows for revealing the evolving GRB outflows.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2015

Searching for cavities of various densities in the Earth's crust with a low-energy electron-antineutrino beta-beam

We propose searching for deep underground cavities of different densities in the Earth's crust using a long-baseline electron-antineutrino disappearance experiment, realized through a low-energy beta-beam with highly-enhanced luminosity. We focus on four cases: cavities with densities close to that of water, iron-banded formations, heavier mineral deposits, and regions of abnormal charge accumulation that have been posited to appear prior to the occurrence of an intense earthquake. The sensitivity to identify cavities attains confidence levels higher than $3σ$ and $5σ$ for exposures times of 3 months and 1.5 years, respectively, and cavity densities below 1 g cm$^{-3}$ or above 5 g cm$^{-3}$, with widths greater than 200 km. We reconstruct the cavity density, width, and position, assuming one of them known while keeping the other two free. We obtain large allowed regions that improve as the cavity density differs more from the Earth's mean density. Furthermore, we demonstrate that knowledge of the cavity density is important to obtain O(10%) error on the width. Finally, we introduce an observable to quantify the presence of a cavity by changing the orientation of the electron-antineutrino beam, with which we are able to identify the presence of a cavity at the $2σ$ to $5σ$ C.L.

hep-ph↗