Calculation of the Decay Rate of Tachyonic Neutrinos Against Charged-Lepton-Pair and Neutrino-Pair Cerenkov Radiation

Abstract

We consider in detail the calculation of the decay rate of high-energy superluminal neutrinos against (charged) lepton pair Cerenkov radiation, and neutrino pair Cerenkov radiation, i.e., against the decay channel υ → υ e+ e- and υ → υ υ υ. Under the hypothesis of a tachyonic nature of neutrinos, these decay channels put constraints on the lifetime of high-energy neutrinos for terrestrial experiments as well as on cosmic scales. For the oncoming neutrino, we use the Lorentz-covariant tachyonic relation Eυ = √[p2 - mυ2], where mυ is the tachyonic mass parameter. We derive both threshold conditions as well as on decay and energy loss rates, using the plane-wave fundamental bispinor solutions of the tachyonic Dirac equation. Various intricacies of rest frame versus lab frame calculations are highlighted. The results are compared to the observations of high-energy IceCube neutrinos of cosmological origin.

Department(s)

Physics

Comments

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant PHY-1403973 and PHY-1710856).

Keywords and Phrases

Decay Processes; Generalized Dirac Equations; Lorentz Invariance; Neutrinos; Tachyons

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0954-3899; 1361-6471

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2017 Institute of Physics - IOP Publishing, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Sep 2017

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