New Physics in Astrophysical Neutrino Flavor (1506.02043v2)

Abstract: Astrophysical neutrinos are powerful tools to investigate the fundamental properties of particle physics through their flavor content. In this paper, we perform the first general new physics study on ultra high energy neutrino flavor content by introducing effective operators. We find that at the current limits on these operators, new physics terms cause maximal effects on the flavor content, however, the flavor content at Earth is confined to a region related to the assumed initial flavor content. Furthermore, we conclude that a precise measure of the flavor content at Earth will provide orders of magnitude improvement on new physics bounds. Finally, we discuss the current best fits of flavor content of the IceCube data and their interplay with new physics scenarios.