Searching for Decoherence from Quantum Gravity at the IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory ...

• Main Authors: Abbasi, R., Ackermann, M., Adams, J., Agarwalla, S. K., Aguilar, J. A., Ahlers, M., Alameddine, J. M., Amin, N. M., Andeen, K., Anton, G., Argüelles, C., Ashida, Y., Athanasiadou, S., Axani, S. N., Bai, X., V., A. Balagopal, Baricevic, M., Barwick, S. W., Basu, V., Bay, R., Beatty, J. J., Tjus, J. Becker, Beise, J., Bellenghi, C., Benning, C., BenZvi, S., Berley, D., Bernardini, E., Besson, D. Z., Blaufuss, E., Blot, S., Bontempo, F., Book, J. Y., Meneguolo, C. Boscolo, Böser, S., Botner, O., Böttcher, J., Bourbeau, E., Braun, J., Brinson, B., Brostean-Kaiser, J., Burley, R. T., Busse, R. S., Butterfield, D., Campana, M. A., Carloni, K., Carnie-Bronca, E. G., Chattopadhyay, S., Chau, N., Chen, C.
• Format: Report
• Language: unknown
• Published: arXiv 2023
• Subjects: High Energy Physics - Experiment hep-ex; High Energy Physics - Phenomenology hep-ph; High Energy Physics - Theory hep-th; FOS Physical sciences; Antarctic; South Pole; The Antarctic; Antarc*; South pole
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2308.00105; https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.00105

Neutrino oscillations at the highest energies and longest baselines provide a natural quantum interferometer with which to study the structure of spacetime and test the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics. If the metric of spacetime has a quantum mechanical description, there is a generic expectation that its fluctuations at the Planck scale would introduce non-unitary effects that are inconsistent with the standard unitary time evolution of quantum mechanics. Neutrinos interacting with such fluctuations would lose their quantum coherence, deviating from the expected oscillatory flavor composition at long distances and high energies. The IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory is a billion-ton neutrino telescope situated in the deep ice of the Antarctic glacier. Atmospheric neutrinos detected by IceCube in the energy range 0.5--10 TeV have been used to test for coherence loss in neutrino propagation. No evidence of anomalous neutrino decoherence was observed, leading to the strongest experimental ...