JPS Conf. Proc. 1, 013127 (2014) [6 pages]
Proceedings of the 12th Asia Pacific Physics Conference (APPC12)
Search for Cosmic Background Neutrino Decay
1University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8571, Japan
2JAXA ISAS, Sagamihara, Kanagawa,252-5210,Japan
3Okayama University, Okayama 700-8530, Japan
4RIKEN, Saitama 351-0198, Japan
5University of Fukui, Fukui 910-8507, Japan
6Kinki University, Osaka 577-8502, Japan
7KEK, Ibaraki 305-0801, Japan
8Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Illinois, 60510, US
9Seoul National University, Seoul, 151-742, Korea
Received July 14, 2013

We present a proposal of an experiment for search for cosmic background neutrino decay. Due to the mass difference between neutrino generations, a heavier neutrino can decay into a lighter neutrino with a photon. Standard model predicts the neutrino lifetime is 1043 year, while the current experimental lower limit of neutrino lifetime is 3 × 1012 year. However, left-right symmetric model suggests much shorter neutrino lifetime down to 1017 year in the shortest. If we assume a mass of the heaviest neutrino is 50 meV, the expected photon energy at the neutrino rest frame is 25 meV. The energy spectrum of the photon from the cosmic background neutrino decay has a cutoff at this energy and a low energy tail due to a red shift effect. Thus we propose an experiment to search for the photon emission from the decay of cosmic background neutrino by measuring the continuous photon energy spectrum in the far infrared wavelength region. We plan to perform a rocket experiment with a superconducting tunnel junction (STJ) detector in 2016 in the earliest, aiming at improving the neutrino lifetime limit by two orders of magnitude. We aim at a 10-hour satellite experiment with 5σ sensitivity for the neutrino lifetime of 1017 year.

©2014 The Physical Society of Japan

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