Pseudo-Dirac Neutrinos and Relic Neutrino Matter Effect on the High-energy Neutrino Flavor Composition

Abstract

We show that if neutrinos are pseudo-Dirac, they can potentially affect the flavor ratio predictions for the high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux observed by IceCube. In this context, we point out a novel matter effect induced by the cosmic neutrino background (C$\nu$B) on the flavor ratio composition. Specifically, the active-sterile neutrino oscillations over the astrophysical baseline lead to an energy-dependent flavor ratio at Earth due to the C$\nu$B matter effect, which is in principle distinguishable from the vacuum oscillation effect, provided there is an asymmetry between the neutrino and antineutrino number densities, as well as a local C$\nu$B overdensity. Considering the projected precision of the 3-neutrino oscillation parameter measurements and improved flavor triangle measurements, we show that the next-generation neutrino telescopes, such as KM3NeT and IceCube-Gen2, can in principle probe the pseudo-Dirac neutrino hypothesis and the C$\nu$B matter effect.

Comments: 16 pages, 6 figures; matches published version