25–27 Jun 2025
NYCU
Asia/Taipei timezone

Probing Terrestrial Relic Neutrino Charge with Mach-Zehnder Interferometer

26 Jun 2025, 15:30
30m
Science Building III/SC353 (NYCU)

Science Building III/SC353

NYCU

Science Building III, No 1001, University Rd., Hsinchu 300, Taiwan

Speaker

Vincent Gene Otero (National Taiwan Normal University)

Description

We propose a novel mechanism to detect terrestrial cosmic neutrino background's (CNB) limit of electric charge by employing Mach-Zehnder interferometer with asymmetrical arm placement – one at the Earth’s surface and the other is placed underground. Assuming that relic neutrinos possess a small but nonzero charge, their coherent forward scattering with photons induces measurable phase shift in a laser beam. From the terrestrial CNB overdensity resulting from weak interaction induced by neutrino-antineutrino asymmetry near the surface of the earth, we formulate the quantum interaction Hamiltonian and analyze the induced phase shift under realistic interferometric constraints. The projected sensitivity reaches of our setup are evaluated under three operation regimes: the standard quantum limit (SQL), the Heisenberg limit, and the super-Heisenberg limit. For neutrino masses $m_\nu=0.05$ eV, our scheme can probe fractional electric charges $\epsilon_\nu$ as small as $9.3 \times 10^{-11}$, $1.6 \times 10^{-16}$, and $2.9 \times 10^{-22}$, respectively. The proposed interferometric strategy surpasses existing laboratory bounds and even astrophysical constraints when operating in the Heisenberg or super-Heisenberg mode.

Please choose your topic Gravity & Particle Physics

Primary author

Prof. Chuan-Ren Chen (National Taiwan Normal University)

Co-authors

Vincent Gene Otero (National Taiwan Normal University) Mr Chrisna Setyo Nugroho (National Taiwan Normal University)

Presentation materials