Exploring neutrino loss with diffuse astrophysical neutrino fluxes

Fuente: arXiv
Salvato in:
Dettagli Bibliografici
Autori principali: Esteban, Ivan, Gago, Alberto M., Gonzalez-Garcia, M. C., Zapata, Gabriel D.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
Soggetti:
Accesso online:
Tags: Aggiungi Tag
Nessun Tag, puoi essere il primo ad aggiungerne!!
_version_ 1866914564618059776
author Esteban, Ivan
Gago, Alberto M.
Gonzalez-Garcia, M. C.
Zapata, Gabriel D.
author_facet Esteban, Ivan
Gago, Alberto M.
Gonzalez-Garcia, M. C.
Zapata, Gabriel D.
contents We study the sensitivity of the diffuse high-energy neutrino flux observed in IceCube to new-physics effects resulting in an exponential flux attenuation along the trajectory, such as invisible neutrino decay or new interactions with the background encountered during propagation. We argue that, even though the sources and production redshifts of these astrophysical neutrinos are unknown, conservative energy-conservation arguments allow to severely constrain neutrino loss in most scenarios beyond the strongest existing bounds. By performing a fit to the High-Energy Starting Events from IceCube, we quantify the bounds and study their variation with the energy dependence of the attenuation, the assumed redshift distribution of the neutrino sources, and whether the attenuation affects neutrinos exclusively or no. We also show that including an energy-dependent attenuation at the level allowed in the fit may impact the determination of the spectral index of the diffuse flux.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_13955
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Exploring neutrino loss with diffuse astrophysical neutrino fluxes
Esteban, Ivan
Gago, Alberto M.
Gonzalez-Garcia, M. C.
Zapata, Gabriel D.
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
We study the sensitivity of the diffuse high-energy neutrino flux observed in IceCube to new-physics effects resulting in an exponential flux attenuation along the trajectory, such as invisible neutrino decay or new interactions with the background encountered during propagation. We argue that, even though the sources and production redshifts of these astrophysical neutrinos are unknown, conservative energy-conservation arguments allow to severely constrain neutrino loss in most scenarios beyond the strongest existing bounds. By performing a fit to the High-Energy Starting Events from IceCube, we quantify the bounds and study their variation with the energy dependence of the attenuation, the assumed redshift distribution of the neutrino sources, and whether the attenuation affects neutrinos exclusively or no. We also show that including an energy-dependent attenuation at the level allowed in the fit may impact the determination of the spectral index of the diffuse flux.
title Exploring neutrino loss with diffuse astrophysical neutrino fluxes
topic High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.13955