29 May 2018 to 3 June 2018
Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Conference Center
US/Pacific timezone

Neutrino Flavor Transformation and the Cosmic Lepton Asymmetry

1 Jun 2018, 18:10
20m
South Foyer | Nopales Room (Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Conference Center)

South Foyer | Nopales Room

Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Conference Center

44600 Indian Wells Lane, Indian Wells, CA 92210, USA
Parallel NMNM NMNM / TSEI

Speaker

Luke Johns (UC San Diego)

Description

Observational constraints permit a cosmic lepton asymmetry that is orders of magnitude larger than its baryonic counterpart, a possibility of great relevance for leptogenesis, sterile neutrino dark matter, and the flavor evolution of Standard Model neutrinos. It is this last connection that we focus on here: the flavor states of neutrinos in the early universe are coupled to each other, through neutrino-neutrino forward scattering, in a way that depends on the lepton asymmetry. We identify the regimes of flavor transformation that are permitted by constraints and discuss possible ramifications for Big Bang nucleosynthesis. Incidentally, the regime preferred by resonant production of sterile neutrino dark matter is marked by a new flavor-transformation phenomenon, which we analogize to the real-life toy known as a rattleback.
E-mail ljohns@physics.ucsd.edu

Primary author

Luke Johns (UC San Diego)

Co-authors

George Fuller (UC San Diego) Mark Paris (Los Alamos National Lab) Mattia Mina (University of Oslo) Vincenzo Cirigliano (Los Alamos National Lab)

Presentation materials