Session Q16 - Astrophysics: Student Prize Talks.
MIXED session, Monday afternoon, May 01
202C, LBCC
We discuss how supernova and big bang neutrinos and their influence on nucleosynthesis could become remarkably sensitive probes of extra dimensions associated with string theories. In particular, those versions of these theories that include bulk fermions which mix with active neutrinos on our brane may be amenable to constraint. This is because the Kaluza-Klein modes associated with the bulk fermions behave like sterile neutrinos. As such, matter-enhanced transformation of active neutrinos into these modes can produce potentially significant effects in the early universe and supernovae. We find that extra dimension scales of order angstroms to thousands of angstroms lead to astrophysically and cosmologically interesting effects, even though with these parameters there are insignificant deviations from Standard Model physics at stellar, early universe, and laboratory energies.