Interpreting the bounds on Dark Matter induced muons at Super-Kamiokande in the light of CDMS data

title: Upper limit on the cosmic gamma-ray burst rate from high energy diffuse neutrino background
abstract: We derive upper limits on the ratio f{sub GRB/CCSN}(z){identical_to}R{sub GRB}(z)/R{sub CCSN}(z){identical_to}f{sub GRB/CCSN}(0)(1+z){sup {alpha}}, the ratio of the rate, R{sub GRB}, of long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) to the rate, R{sub CCSN}, of core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) in the Universe (z being the cosmological redshift and {), by using the upper limit on the diffuse TeV-PeV neutrino background given by the AMANDA-II experiment in the South Pole, under the assumption that GRBs are sources of TeV-PeV neutrinos produced from decay of charged pions produced in p{gamma} interaction of protons accelerated to ultrahigh energies at internal shocks within GRB jets. For the assumed ''concordance model'' of cosmic star formation rate, R{sub SF}, with R{sub CCSN}(z){proportional_to}R{sub SF}(z), our conservative upper limits are f{sub GRB/CCSN}(0){ =}1, already more restrictive than) the current upper limit on this ratio inferred from other astronomical considerations, thus providing a useful independent probe of and constraint on the CCSN-GRB connection. Nondetection of a diffuse TeV-PeV neutrino background by the upcoming IceCube detector in the South Pole after three years of operation, for example, will bring down the upper limit on f{sub GRB/CCSN}(0)more » to below a few x10{sup -5} level, while a detection will confirm the hypothesis of proton acceleration to ultrahigh energies in GRBs and will potentially also yield the true rate of occurrence of these events in the Universe.« less

title: Observing supernova neutrino light curve in future dark matter detectors
abstract: The possibility of observing supernova (SN) neutrinos through the process of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CENNS) in future ton scale detectors designed primarily for direct detection of dark matter is investigated. In particular, we focus on the possibility of distinguishing the various phases of the SN neutrino emission. The neutrino emission rates from the recent long term Basel/Darmstadt simulations are used to calculate the expected event rates. The recent state-of-the-art SN simulations predict closer fluxes among different neutrino flavors and lower average energies compared to the earlier simulation models. We find that our estimated total event rates are typically a factor of two lower than those predicted using older simulation models. We further find that, with optimistic assumptions on the detector's time resolution (~ 10 ms) and energy threshold (~ 0.1 keV), the neutrinos associated with the accretion phase of the SN can in principle be demarcated out with, for example, a 10-ton Xe detector, although distinguishing the neutrinos associated with the neutronization burst phase of the explosion would typically require several tens of ton detectors. We also comment on the possibility of studying the properties of non-electron flavor neutrinos from the CENNS of SN neutrinos.

title: Stability analysis of collective neutrino oscillations in the supernova accretion phase with realistic energy and angle distributions
abstract: We revisit our previous results on the matter suppression of self-induced neutrino flavor conversions during a supernova (SN) accretion phase, performing a linearized stability analysis of the neutrino equations of motion, in the presence of realistic SN density profiles. In our previous numerical study, we used a simplified model based on an isotropic neutrino emission with a single typical energy. Here, we take into account realistic neutrino energy and angle distributions. We find that multi-energy effects have a sub-leading impact in the flavor stability of the SN neutrino fluxes with respect to our previous single-energy results. Conversely, realistic forward-peaked neutrino angular distributions would enhance the matter suppression of the self-induced oscillations with respect to an isotropic neutrino emission. As a result, in our models for iron-core SNe, collective flavor conversions have a negligible impact on the characterization of the observable neutrino signal during the accretion phase. Instead, for a low-mass O-Ne-Mg core SN model, with lower matter density profile and less forward-peaked angular distributions, collective conversions are possible also at early times.

title: On the Observability of Collective Flavor Oscillations in Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background
abstract: Collective flavor oscillations are known to bring multiple splits in the supernova (SN) neutrino and antineutrino spectra. These spectral splits depend not only on the mass hierarchy of the neutrinos but also on the initial relative flux composition. Observation of spectral splits in a future galactic supernova signal is expected to throw light on the mass hierarchy pattern of the neutrinos. However, since the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background (DSNB) comprises of a superposition of neutrino fluxes from all past supernovae, and since different supernovae are expected to have slightly different initial fluxes, it is pertinent to check if the hierarchy dependent signature of collective oscillations can survive this averaging of the flux spectra. Since the actual distribution of SN with initial relative flux spectra of the neutrinos and antineutrinos is unknown, we assume a log-normal distribution for them. We study the dependence of the hierarchy sensitivity to the mean and variance of the log-normal distribution function. We find that the hierarchy sensitivity depends crucially on the mean value of the relative initial luminosity. The effect of the width is to reduce the hierarchy sensitivity for all values of the mean initial relative luminosity. We find that in the very small mixing angle ( θ 13 ) limit considering only statistical errors even for very moderate values of variance, there is almost no detectable hierarchy sensitivity if the mean relative luminosities of ν e and ν ¯ e are greater than 1.

title: Collective flavor oscillations of supernova neutrinos and r-process nucleosynthesis
abstract: Neutrino-neutrino interactions inside core-collapse supernovae may give rise to collective flavor oscillations resulting in swap between flavors. These oscillations depend on the initial energy spectra, and relative fluxes or relative luminosities of the neutrinos. It has been observed that departure from energy equipartition among different flavors can give rise to one or more sharp spectral swap over energy, termed as splits. We study the occurrence of splits in the neutrino and antineutrino spectra, varying the initial relative fluxes for different models of initial energy spectrum, in both normal and inverted hierarchy. These initial relative flux variations give rise to several possible split patterns whereas variation over different models of energy spectra give similar results. We explore the effect of these spectral splits on the electron fraction, Ye, that governs r-process nucleosynthesis inside supernovae. Since spectral splits modify the electron neutrino and antineutrino spectra in the region where r-process is postulated to happen, and since the pattern of spectral splits depends on the initial conditions of the spectra and the neutrino mass hierarchy, we show that the condition Ye < 0.5 required for successful r-process nucleosynthesis will lead to constraints on the initial spectral conditions, for a given neutrino mass hierarchy.

title: Evolution of the Horizons for Dark Energy Universe
abstract: Recent observational evidences of accelerating phase of the universe strongly demand that the dominating matter in the universe is in the form of dark energy. In this work, we study the evolution of the apparent and event horizons for various dark energy models and examine their behavior across phantom barrier line.

title: A redefinition of Hawking temperature on the event horizon: Thermodynamical equilibrium
abstract: In this Letter we have used the recently introduced redefined Hawking temperature on the event horizon and investigated whether the generalized second law of thermodynamics (GSLT) and thermodynamic equilibrium holds for both the event and the apparent horizons. Here we have considered FRW universe and examined the GSLT and thermodynamic equilibrium with three examples. Finally, we have concluded that from the thermodynamic viewpoint, the universe bounded by the event horizon is more realistic than that by the apparent horizon at least for some examples.

title: Collapse dynamics of a star of dark matter and dark energy
abstract: We study the collapse dynamics of an inhomogeneous spherically symmetric star made of dark matter (DM) and dark energy (DE). The dark matter is taken in the form of a dust cloudwhile an anisotropic fluid is chosen as the candidate for dark energy. It is investigated how dark energy modifies the collapsing process, and it is examined whether dark energy has any effect on the Cosmic Censorship Conjecture. The collapsing star is assumed to be of finite radius, and the space-time is divided into three distinct regions Σ and V±, where Σ represents the boundary of the star and V−(V+) denotes the interior (exterior) of the star. The junction conditions for matching V± over Σ are specified. The role of Dark energy in the formation of an apparent horizon is studied, and the central singularity is analyzed.

title: Interacting Holographic Dark Energy Model as a Dynamical system and the Coincidence Problem
abstract: We examine the evolution of a holographic cosmological model with future event horizon as the infrared cut-off and dark matter and dark energy do not evolve independently $-$ there is interaction between them. The basic evolution equations are reduced to an autonomous system and corresponding phase space is analyzed.

title: A study of phase transition in black hole thermodynamics
abstract: This paper deals with five-dimensional black hole solutions in (a) Einstein-Maxwell-Gauss-Bonnet theory with a cosmological constant and (b) Einstein-Yang-Mills-Gauss-Bonnet theory for spherically symmetric space time. In both the cases the possibility of phase transition is examined and it is analyzed whether the phase transition is a Hawking-Page type phase transition or not.