Hugo Terças
Instituto Superior Técnico, Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear, Portugal

Abstract
Highly energetic neutrinos have been successfully detected in experiments such as IceCube or Super-Kamiokande. Conversely, neutrinos in the ultra-low energy range (E < 1.0 eV) have been theoretically predicted but their observation remains so far elusive. Here, we propose a scheme based on graphene metamaterials for the detection of such ultra-low energetic neutrinos. Slow neutrino fluxes can trigger a plasmon instability in the metamaterial due to the weak force, which is reminiscent of the beam-plasma instability taking place in astrophysics. We make use of the semi-classical form of the equations governing the weak interaction to describe the coupling between the neutrinos and electrons in graphene. To render the scheme practical, we investigate the neutrino-plasma instability produced in a metamaterial composed by a periodic stacking of bilayer graphene sheets.

2022 October 27, 14:30

IA/U.Lisboa
Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa (C8.2.04)
Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisboa