Neutrino Physics as a Probe for New Fundamental Forces: Exploring Anomalies in Neutrino Oscillations to Detect Physics Beyond the Standard Model

Abstract

Experiments on neutrino oscillations have proven the existence of flavor mixing and finite mass of neutrinos - measurements that are incompatible with the original Standard Model (SM). The discoveries provide a window, where indications of new fundamental forces can be observed. The paper is an in-depth review and overview of theoretical models and experimental findings in physics Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) coded in the data of neutrino oscillations, covering the time frame of 20242026. We discuss the phenomenology of Non-Standard Interactions (NSI) of neutrinos with matter, light sterile neutrinos, Lorentz and CPT symmetry Breaking, and anomalous mass-ordering. Based on T2K, NOvA, IceCube, JUNO, Daya Bay, and future DUNE and Hyper-Kamiokande findings, we map the present experimental status quo and sketch out regions of possible BSM parameter space. We have shown above that the sensitivity of measurements of the precision oscillations, especially of δCP and θ 2 3, is increased by NSI parameters especially by the ε of the order of 0.03 -0.1. Global analyses combine fits which tightens NSI coefficients more than any single experiment. Facilities in the future are expected to probe Lorentz-violating coefficients at |human| = 10 - 26 GeV and neutrino non-unitarity at the sub-percent level. We hold that the coming decade of neutrino physics is the most formidable low-energy BSM laboratory ever. The review is designed in a way that it can be used by theorists who are in need of an experimental grounding and experimentalists in need of a BSM theoretical toolkit.

Keywords

Neutrino oscillations, Beyond the Standard Model, non-standard interactions, sterile neutrinos, Lorentz violation, CPT symmetry, PMNS matrix, DUNE, Hyper-Kamiokande, seesaw mechanism, leptogenesis, neutrino mass