MaVaNs and Solar Physics: A Preliminary Study

A simple quantum mechanical model of neutrino oscillations fits all experimental data thus far, but the data is sparse enough to allow for many other possibilities. The mass-varying neutrino (MaVaN) model adds one heavy sterile neutrino with a mass proportional to a power of the electron number density. We study oscillations between two active neutrinos after integrating out the sterile neutrino, with the goal of reproducing the standard electron neutrino survival curve for electron neutrinos from the sun. Using a computer scan to find the best-fitting parameters, we achieve this goal, and demonstrate that there are possibilities for new physics in the explanation of neutrino oscillations.