Erice: INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF NUCLEAR PHYSICS, 47th COURSE

The PTOLEMY project exploits the innovative concept of the transverse drift filter, in which the synergic action of on uniform magnetic field and electric one play a key role. This is used to achieve a controlled reduction of the kinetic energy of electrons within a one-meter transport length. Before implementing this approach in the PTOLEMY demonstrator, a proof-of-principle test will be...

Abstract: Lepton number violation (LNV) as underlying neutrinoless nuclear double beta decay (DBD) and equal-charged lepton pair plus di-jet production in ultra-relativistic hadron collisions are expected to deliver the heavily searched on signatures for physics beyond the standard model (BSM). Direct probes for LNV are lepton DCE (LDCE) reactions at accelerators, apparently and surprisingly...

The determination of the absolute neutrino mass scale remains one of the most pressing open challenges in modern physics. Although the Standard Model assumes massless neutrinos, flavor oscillations unequivocally prove the existence of massive, non-degenerate eigenstates. State-of-the-art experiments like KATRIN are currently pushing the sensitivity limits of tritium $\beta$-decay spectroscopy,...

Neutrinos in dense astrophysical environments play an important role in shaping the dynamics and nucleosynthesis of systems such as core-collapse supernovae and binary neutron star mergers. We have recently investigated collective neutrino-antineutrino pairing phenomena within an extended mean-field framework that incorporates neutrino-antineutrino pairing correlations [1]. Unlike conventional...

While most research on sterile neutrinos focuses on the sub-eV mass scale associated with the surprising oscillation effects at a scale of L/GeV ~ 1 m/eV, this master’s research project aims to explore an alternative and far less investigated scenario: that of superlight sterile neutrinos (sub-meV scale).
This scenario becomes particularly relevant with the advent of next-generation...

We discuss the effect of multiple mediators influencing the scattering of astrophysical neutrinos at the ultra-high energies — 100 TeV and beyond — against relic neutrinos from the Cosmic neutrino background, demonstrating unique features in the resulting spectral shape as detected at neutrino telescopes like IceCube. We specifically discuss the effect of superposition of scattering amplitudes...

Relativistic energy density functionals provide a universal self-consistent description of nuclear ground states across the nuclear chart. The resulting ground states can be to obtain the excited states of the nucleus. These excited states play a major role in determining the cross sections of low-energy neutrino-nucleus interactions. The interaction is described by a charged-current weak...

We investigate the late-time accelerated expansion of the Universe within the framework of power law f(Q) gravity, adopting a logarithmic parametrization of dark energy. This approach enables a smooth evolution of the equation of state across different redshifts. The model parameters are constrained using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) analysis based on recent observational data, including...

Scaling Cyclotron Radiation Emission Spectroscopy(CRES) to large volumes in the Project 8 neutrino mass experiment

Abstract

Project 8 is a next-generation experiment aiming to perform a direct measurement of the neutrino mass using the endpoint region of the tritium beta-decay spectrum, with a final target sensitivity of 40 meV. To achieve this goal, Project 8 employs Cyclotron...

The multi-staged Project 8 experiment aims for a direct neutrino mass measurement, investigating on the atomic Tritium's beta decay electron energy spectrum. It employs the non-destructive technique of Cyclotron radiation emission spectroscopy (CRES), which measures the electron’s energy from the cyclotron radiation it emits when moving in a magnetic field. While recent measurements have shown...

The effective electron neutrino mass can be derived from the analysis of the endpoint region of electron capture spectra, since the finite mass distorts the spectral shape near the Q value. In ECHo the shape of the Ho-163 electron capture spectrum is studied. During the first phase of the ECHo experiment, more than 200 million Ho-163 events were acquired using 2 arrays of metallic magnetic...

The analysis of the endpoint region of β-decay or electron capture decay spectra is a model independent method for the determination of the effective electron (anti-)neutrino mass. The ECHo collaboration aims to achieve this goal by building a ‘Large scale Experiment’, named ‘ECHo-LE’, with the objective of attaining — for the first time — sub-eV sensitivity on the effective neutrino mass with...

We model the effects of decoherence induced by quantum gravity phenomenologically using an open quantum system framework. In addition to the three known active neutrinos, we allow for an arbitrary number of dark fermion generations, such as particle dark matter or sterile neutrinos. Assuming that quantum gravity is flavour blind, we expect democratic transition probabilities across all...

The SNO+ experiment is a large multi-purpose neutrino detector, based 2km underground in Sudbury, Canada. A phased approach to its target deployment has allowed for a variety of neutrino physics to be explored, including reactor, geo-, solar, and supernova neutrinos. It also allows for effective background and detector characterisation in preparation for the loading of tellurium into the...

The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is a next-generation multipurpose liquid scintillator detector with a 20-kiloton target mass, located in southern China. One of its primary goals is to determine the neutrino mass ordering (NMO) with a significance of at least 3σ by precisely measuring the oscillation pattern of reactor antineutrinos over a 53 km baseline. Beyond reactor...

Neutrinos play a major role in the core-collapse supernova mechanism. In the supernova core, the neutrino density is so large, that neutrino self-interaction dominates the flavor evolution with major implications on the supernova mechanism, neutron-star kicks, and the nucleosynthesis of the elements heavier than iron. Our work advances the understanding of flavor conversion in core-collapse...

Coherent elastic neutrino–nucleus scattering (CE$\nu$NS) is a Standard Model process in which a neutrino scatters coherently off an entire nucleus, provided that the momentum transfer is sufficiently small compared to the inverse nuclear size. This process serves as a powerful probe of weak interactions, neutron distributions within nuclei, and potential new physics scenarios, including...

The KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment measures the effective electron antineutrino mass by precision spectroscopy of the endpoint region of the kinematic tritium β-decay spectrum. Using a high-luminosity gaseous molecular tritium source with an electrostatic spectrometer with magnetic adiabatic collimation, an upper limit of 0.45 eV/c² (90% C.L.) on the neutrino mass is currently...

The KATRIN experiment aims at a direct kinematic measurement of the absolute neutrino mass with an expected sensitivity below 300 meV (90% CL), achieved through high-resolution, high-statistics spectroscopy of tritium beta decay. To reach this sensitivity, systematic effects that modify the measured electron spectrum must be modeled and controlled via dedicated calibration measurements. One...

An atomic tritium source, realized by magnetically trapping sub-kelvin-cold atoms, is a key technology for future experiments such as KATRIN++, Project 8, and QTNM, all of which aim to probe the effective electron antineutrino mass with a sensitivity below 50 meV. The first step in a multi-stage approach is the dissociation of molecular tritium. The two main technologies pursued for this are...

The explosion of the type II supernova SN1987A provides a unique laboratory to constrain novel energy-loss mechanisms and possible extensions of the standard properties of neutrinos. Here we propose a detailed investigation on the production and emission of right-handed neutrinos νR via helicity-flip transitions mediated by a non-zero neutrino magnetic dipole moment μν within the extreme...

A key requirement for realizing the full physics potential of current and future neutrino experiments – including T2K, NOvA, Hyper-Kamiokande, and DUNE with both accelerator-based and atmospheric neutrino measurements – is the reduction of uncertainties in neutrino flux predictions. A major source of these uncertainties comes from the limited understanding of primary and secondary...

Located at LNGS, LEGEND (Large Enriched Germanium Experiment for Neutrinoless ββ Decay) aims to probe the Majorana nature of the neutrino by observing the neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay in high-purity germanium crystals (HPGe) enriched in 76Ge and immersed in an ultra-pure instrumented liquid argon (LAr) volume. The first phase, LEGEND-200, has collected data since spring 2023. Beyond...

A Xenon Electroluminescence (AXEL) detector is a high-pressure xenon gas time projection chamber for searching for neutrinoless double beta decay (0$\nu\beta\beta$), which is a key to solve neutrino mass mechanism and matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe. For a high-sensitivity 0$\nu\beta\beta$ search, achieving both of backgrounds discrimination and large mass of decay nuclei is...

The Hyper-Kamiokande (Hyper-K) is the third generation of underground water Cherenkov detectors in Japan. It will serve as: (1) the far detector for a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment for the upgraded, 1.3 MW power, J-PARC muon neutrino/antineutrino beam, and (2) a detector capable of observing proton decays, atmospheric neutrinos, and neutrinos from astronomical sources. The...

The Hyper-Kamiokande experiment is a future water Cherenkov neutrino experiment located in Japan. It will be an order of magnitude larger than its predecessor Super-Kamiokande, with improved detection technology. The experiment will target a broad physics program, including precisely measuring neutrino oscillation parameters, alongside determining whether charge parity is violated, searches...

The finite temperature and edge induced effects on the charge and current densities are studied for a massive spinor field localized on a 2D conical space threaded by a magnetic flux. The field operator is constrained on a circular boundary, concentric with the cone apex, by the bag boundary condition and by the condition with the opposite sign in front of the term containing the normal to the...

We propose a novel mechanism for generating the baryon asymmetry of the Universe through leptogenesis in a scenario where the right-handed neutrinos are heavier than the maximal temperature of the Universe, and are never produced on-shell, neither by thermal nor by non-thermal mechanisms. We introduce a new scalar field, $\phi$, lighter than the right-handed neutrinos, that couples to the...

Core-collapse supernovae (CCSN) emit neutrinos and antineutrinos of all flavors with distinct luminosities and energy spectra. As neutrinos propagate through the dense and anisotropic stellar interior, their interactions with the surrounding medium introduce several characteristic energy scales -- including neutrino self-interactions, neutrino-electron forward scattering, and vacuum mixing --...

Single kaon production in neutrino interactions is a rare process with relevance for both neutrino–nucleus studies and searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. In particular, neutral-current flavor transitions such as $\bar{d} \rightarrow \bar{s}$ are strongly suppressed in the Standard Model, making the reaction $\nu p \rightarrow \nu K^+ n$ a possible probe of non-standard...

Following the completion of its neutrino mass measurement program at the end of 2025, the KATRIN experiment aims to probe keV-scale sterile neutrinos by analyzing the full tritium beta decay spectrum with a novel detector system, TRISTAN. Leveraging KATRIN's high source activity, this search is sensitive to mixing amplitudes at the parts-per-million level. However, extracting a potential...

The Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background (DSNB) constitutes a steady and isotropic flux of neutrinos originating from all past core-collapse supernovae across the observable universe. Despite decades of theoretical development and increasingly stringent limits from experiments such as Super-Kamiokande, the DSNB remains undetected. Its eventual observation would provide a unique probe of...