The radiative decay of a high energy neutrino in the Coulomb field of a nucleus

Since its original postulation by Wolfgang Pauli in 1930, the neutrino has played a prominent role in our understanding of nuclear and particle physics. In the intervening 80 years, scientists have detected and measured neutrinos from a variety of sources, both man-made and natural. Underlying all of these observations, and any inferences we may have made from them, is an understanding of how neutrinos interact with matter. Knowledge of neutrino interaction cross sections is ...

Astrophysical environments that reach temperatures greater than $\sim$ 100 keV can have significant neutrino energy loss via both plasma processes and nuclear weak interactions. We find that nuclear processes likely produce the highest-energy neutrinos. Among the important weak nuclear interactions are both charged current channels (electron capture/emission and positron capture/emission) and neutral current channels (de-excitation of nuclei via neutrino pair emission). We sh...

We discuss the possibility of utilizing the ultra-high energy neutrino beam (about 1000 TeV) to detect and destroy the nuclear bombs wherever they are and whoever possess them.

Cross sections for the interactions of ultrahigh-energy neutrinos with nucleons are evaluated in light of new information about nucleon structure functions. For $10^{20}$--eV neutrinos, the cross section is about 2.4 times previous estimates. We also review the cross sections for neutrino interactions with atomic electrons. Some consequences for interaction rates in the Earth and for event rates from generic astrophysical sources in large-scale detectors are noted.

The process of the lepton pair production by a neutrino propagating in an external electromagnetic field is investigated in the framework of the Standard Model. Relatively simple exact expression for the probability as the single integral is obtained, which is suitable for a quantitative analysis.

We examine the impact of electromagnetic properties of neutrinos on the annihilation of relic neutrinos with ultra high energy cosmic neutrinos for the $\nu \bar{\nu}\to \gamma\gamma$ process. For this process, photon-neutrino decoupling temperature is calculated via effective lagrangian model beyond the standard model. We find that photon-neutrino decoupling temperature can be importantly reduced below the QCD phase transition with the model independent analysis defining ele...

We investigate in detail the possibility of constraining neutrino decays with data from the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). Two generic decays are considered \nu_H -> \nu_L \phi and \nu_H -> \nu_L \nu_L_bar \nu_L. We have solved the momentum dependent Boltzmann equation in order to account for possible relativistic decays. Doing this we estimate that any neutrino with mass m > 1 eV decaying before the present should be detectable with future CMBR data. Combining...

Neutrino interactions with protons and neutrons probe their deep structure and may reveal new physics. The higher the neutrino energy, the sharper the probe. So far, the neutrino-nucleon ($\nu N$) cross section is known across neutrino energies from a few hundred MeV to a few PeV. Soon, ultra-high-energy (UHE) cosmic neutrinos, with energies above 100 PeV, could take us farther. So far, they have evaded discovery, but upcoming UHE neutrino telescopes endeavor to find them. We...

Over 10 years ago we proposed an experiment on measuring the characteristics of radiative neutron decay in papers [1, 2]. At the same time we had published the theoretical spectrum of radiative gamma quanta, calculated within the framework of the electroweak interactions, on the basis of which we proposed the methodology for the future experiment [3,4]. However, because we were denied beam time on the intensive cold neutron beam at ILL (Grenoble, France) for a number of years...

The ultra-high energy neutrino nucleon cross section grows at a surprising rate with energy due to QCD effects in the target. Recent electroproduction data allows an update of earlier predictions. We compare the results of our own calculations with those of other groups, and critically review the foundation and reliability of the calculations. The question of the `new physics' potential of neutrino telescopes sensitive to the total cross section in multi-PeV energy domain is ...