Spinors and Scalars in curved spacetime: Neutrino dark energy (DE)

Abstract

We study the interaction, in general curved spacetime, between a spinor and a scalar field describing dark energy; the so-called DE model in curved space. The dominant term is the dimension 5 operator, which results in different energy shifts for the neutrino states: an Aharonov–Bohm-like effect. We study the phenomenology of this term and make observational predictions to detect dark energy interactions in the laboratory due to its effect on neutrino oscillation experiments, which opens up the possibility of designing underground experiments to detect dark energy. This dimension 5 operator beyond the Standard Model interaction is less suppressed than the widely discussed dimension 6 operator, which corresponds to mass varying neutrinos; the dimension 5 operator does not suffer from gravitational instabilities.