We compute a new generation of standard solar models (SSMs) that includes recent updates on some important nuclear reaction rates and a more consistent treatment of the equation of state. Models also include a novel and flexible treatment of opacity uncertainties based on opacity kernels, required in the light of recent theoretical and experimental works on radiative opacity. Two large sets of SSMs, each based on a different canonical set of solar abundances with high and low metallicity (Z), are computed to determine model uncertainties and correlations among different observables. We present detailed comparisons of high-and low-Z models against different ensembles of solar observables including solar neutrinos, surface helium abundance, depth of convective envelope and sound speed profile. A global comparison, including all observables, yields a p-value of 2.7σ for the high-Z model and 4.7σ for the low-Z one. When the sound-speed differences in the narrow region of 0.65 < r/R ⊙ < 0.70 are excluded from the analysis, results are 0.9σ and 3.0σ for high-and low-Z models respectively. These results show that: high-Z models agree well with solar data but have a systematic problem right below the bottom of the convective envelope linked to steepness of molecular weight and temperature gradients, and that low-Z models lead to a much more general disagreement with solar data. We also show that, while simple parametrizations of opacity uncertainties can strongly alleviate the solar abundance problem, they are insufficient to substantially improve the agreement of SSMs with helioseismic data beyond that obtained for high-Z models due to the intrinsic correlations of theoretical predictions.

Journal of High Energy Physics 2015.9 (2015): 200 reproduced by permission of Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA)We perform a Bayesian analysis of current neutrino oscillation data. When estimating the oscillation parameters we find that the results generally agree with those of the χ 2 method, with some differences involving s2 23 and CP-violating effects. We discuss the additional subtleties caused by the circular nature of the CP-violating phase, and how it is possible to obtain correlation coefficients with s2 23. When performing model comparison, we find that there is no significant evidence for any mass ordering, any octant of s2 23 or a deviation from maximal mixing, nor the presence of CP-violationM.C.G-G thanks the CERN theory group for their kind hospitality during the final stages of this work. This work is supported by Spanish MINECO grants FPA2012-31880, FPA2012- 34694 and FPA2013-46570, by the Severo Ochoa program SEV-2012-0249 and consolideringenio 2010 grant CSD-2008-0037, by CUR Generalitat de Catalunya grant 2009SGR502, by USA-NSF grant PHY-09-69739 and PHY-13-16617, and by EU grant FP7 ITN INVISIBLES (Marie Curie Actions PITN-GA-2011-289442

In this paper we revisit the question of the information which cosmology provides on the scenarios with sterile neutrinos invoked to describe the SBL anomalies using Bayesian statistical tests. We perform an analysis of the cosmological data in ΛCDM+r + ν s cosmologies for different cosmological data combinations, and obtain the marginalized cosmological likelihood in terms of the two relevant parameters, the sterile neutrino mass m s and its contribution to the energy density of the early Universe ∆N eff . We then present an analysis to quantify at which level a model with one sterile neutrino is (dis)favoured with respect to a model with only three active neutrinos, using results from both short-baseline experiments and cosmology. We study the dependence of the results on the cosmological data considered, in particular on the inclusion of the recent BICEP2 results and the SZ cluster data from the Planck mission. We find that only when the cluster data is included the model with one extra sterile neutrino can become more favoured that the model with only the three active ones provided the sterile neutrino contribution to radiation density is suppressed with respect to the fully thermalized scenario. We have also quantified the level of (in)compatibility between the sterile neutrino masses implied by the cosmological and SBL results.

We perform a detailed study of the renormalization group equations in the inverse seesaw model. Especially, we derive compact analytical formulas for the running of the neutrino parameters in the standard model and the minimal supersymmetric standard model, and illustrate that, due to large Yukawa coupling corrections, significant running effects on the leptonic mixing angles can be naturally obtained in the proximity of the electroweak scale, perhaps even within the reach of the LHC. In general, if the mass spectrum of the light neutrinos is nearly degenerate, the running effects are enhanced to experimentally accessible levels, well suitable for the investigation of the underlying dynamics behind the neutrino mass generation and the lepton flavor structure. In addition, the effects of the seesaw thresholds are discussed, and a brief comparison to other seesaw models is carried out.QC 2010122

Whether the anarchical ansatz or more symmetric structures best describe the neutrino parameters is a long standing question that underwent a revival of interest after the discovery of a nonvanishing reactor angle and the indication of a non-maximal atmospheric angle. In this letter, a Bayesian statistical approach is adopted in order to analyse and compare the two hypotheses within the context of U (1) flavour models. We study the constraints on individual model parameters and perform model comparison: the results elect constructions with built-in hierarchies among the matrix elements as preferred over the anarchical ones, with values of the evidence that depends slightly on whether the U (1) charges are also considered as free parameters or not, and on the priors used.