Cosmic neutrino background detection in the minimally extended Standard Model

Abstract We investigate the sensitivity of relic neutrino detection methods within the Standard Model, extended to include right-chiral neutrino singlets with Majorana mass terms. In particular, we study neutrino capture on unstable nuclei, the Stodolsky effect, coherent scattering, and an accelerator experiment. We demonstrate that the sensitivity transitions smoothly between Dirac and Majorana regimes, depending on the scale of lepton number violation. Importantly, neutral current interactions lead to transitions between the light and heavy neutrino states, necessitating the use of a density matrix formalism for accurate sensitivity calculations. As the oldest source of neutrinos in the universe, relic neutrinos would be able to provide an ultimate constraint on the lepton number violating scale, m R ≳ 10 -33 eV, below which neutrinos would behave as Dirac fermions for all practical purposes.