ORCID

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2573-0216

Date of Award

Summer 8-15-2020

Author's School

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Author's Department

Physics

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Type

Dissertation

Abstract

Ultra-high energy (UHE) astrophysical neutrinos are unique in the sense that they are the

only known particles that could travel through incredibly long distance unattenuated, with

TeV to EeV energy, much higher than the most powerful man-made collider could provide.

The detection of these UHE neutrinos has ushered a new era in neutrino astrophysics, as they

carry important information directly from the inside of energetic astrophysical objects. On the

other hand, from the particle physics point of view, the UHE neutrinos also offer a new window

of opportunity for studying beyond the Standard Model (BSM) phenomena. This is the main

theme of this dissertation. We show by explicit examples that by studying the generation

and detection mechanism of the UHE neutrinos and their energy spectra at ground-based or

airborne neutrino detectors, we can effectively probe some BSM physics with unprecedented

sensitivity. Specifically, we discuss how models of heavy dark matter (DM) decay, Zee model

with light charged scalars, and R-parity violating supersymmetry (RPV-SUSY) can be probed

using the UHE neutrino data from IceCube and ANITA experiments.

In the dissertation, we first give a brief review of the SM with special focus on electroweak

interactions and then discuss in general the mechanism of astrophysical neutrino generation

and interaction with matter under the SM framework. Then, we discuss in detail four projects

related to different aspects of BSM extensions of the UHE neutrino physics.

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In the first project, we mainly focus on the astrophysical aspect of the UHE neutrinos such

as the neutrino flux model, flavor composition due to standard or muon-damped pion source

and the correlation between the neutrino flux and the gamma-ray flux. A two-component

neutrino flux model, with either astrophysical or dark matter origin, and with different flavor

compositions is studied. Our combined likelihood analysis, comparing the simulated data

from various scenarios of this new flux model and the IceCube high-energy neutrino data,

finds that the scenario with a heavy dark matter decay component is mildly preferred over

the purely astrophysical flux model. We derive the corresponding best-fit contours in the

dark matter mass and lifetime plane.

In the second project we turn our eyes back on Earth and focus on a BSM extension of

neutrino-matter interaction – the so-called non-standard neutrino interactions (NSI). We

propose that a leptophilic light charged scalar could induce a Glashow-like resonance which

gives distinguishing signal pattern in the UHE neutrino event spectrum. We study the Zee

model of radiative neutrino mass generation as a prototype and show that with a 100 GeV light

charged scalar, which is still allowed by current constraints, a peak around 10 PeV in the UHE

neutrino energy should be seen with the sensitivity of the upgraded IceCube-Gen2 detector.

This provides a new probe of NSI complementary to neutrino oscillation experiments.

In the third project we move further into the high energy regime and make an attempt

at explaining the up-going anomalous EeV energy neutrino events seen by ANITA balloon

experiment by some BSM physics. We propose that under the framework of RPV-SUSY, a

GeV-scale, long-lived neutral bino could be a suitable candidate to resolve the discrepancy

between the observed up-going EeV events and the short interaction length of UHE neutrinos

in Earth material under SM. In this interpretation, the binos are generated by the modified

neutrino-nucleus interaction and propagate through around 6000 km of Earth material before

decaying back to neutrinos near Earth’s surface and producing extensive up-going air showers

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that are detected by ANITA as the anomalous events. We derive the best-fit region of

parameter space in the RPV-SUSY framework to explain the ANITA events and find that

it is still consistent with current constraints, but should be completely testable in the near

future.

Finally in the fourth project, we extend the RPV-SUSY framework to the so-called RPV3,

where the third-generation superpartners are presumed to be the lightest. In this scenario,

we simultaneous explain the following seemingly unrelated anomalies: (i) the lepton flavor

universality violation manifested as RD() and RK() flavor anomalies; (ii) the long-standing

discrepancy in muon anomalous magnetic moment; and (iii) the ANITA EeV anomalous

up-going events. Three different benchmarks are discussed in detail and all the thirdgeneration

superpartners needed are confined in 1-10 TeV mass range, accessible at the LHC

or next-generation hadron collider.

Language

English (en)

Chair and Committee

Bhupal Dev

Committee Members

James H. Buckley, Ramanath Cowsik, Renato Feres, Francesc Ferrer,

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