We study Pontecorvo neutrino-antineutrino oscillations both in vacuum and in matter within a field theoretic approach, showing that this phenomenon can occur only if neutrinos have a Dirac-Majorana mass term. We find that matter effects suppress these oscillations and cannot explain the solar neutrino problem. On the contrary, a vacuum neutrino-antineutrino oscillations solution to this problem...

In this study, the direct and indirect atmospheric responses over the Asian-Pacific-American region to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) are documented. Since ENSO is likely to induce the northward displacement of the East Asian trough (NDEAT), some of the influence of ENSO on the Asian-Pacific-American region is possibly indirect and acts by inducing NDEAT. To separate corresponding infl...

The prospects of measuring the leptonic angles and CP-odd phases at a neutrino factory are discussed in the scenario of three active plus one sterile neutrino, motivated by the νμ → νe LSND signal. Sensitivity to the MNS mixing matrix angles at O(10) is achieved with a 1 T detector at ∼ 1 km from the source, whereas leptonic CP-violation can be measured through tau detection with a 1 kT detecto...

The phenomenon of neutrino oscillations has been established as the leading mechanism behind neutrino flavor transitions, providing solid experimental evidence that neutrinos are massive and lepton flavors are mixed. Here we review sub-leading effects in neutrino flavor transitions known as non-standard neutrino interactions (NSIs), which is currently the most explored description for effects b...

This is an invited review talk, presented at the International Conference on Non

Using first-principles calculations within density functional theory, we study Friedel oscillations (FOs) in the electron density at different metal surfaces and their influence on the lattice relaxation and stability of ultrathin metal films. We show that the FOs at the Pb(111) surface decay as 1/x with the distance x from the surface, different from the conventional 1/x(2) power law at other ...

It is shown that at least four massive neutrinos are needed in order to accommodate the evidences in favor of neutrino oscillations found in solar and atmospheric neutrino experiments and in the LSND experiment. Among all four-neutrino schemes, only two are compatible with the results of all neutrino oscillation experiments. These two schemes have a mass spectrum composed of two pairs of neutri...

Several studies provide evidence of a link between vector-borne disease outbreaks and El Niño driven climate anomalies. Less investigated are the effects of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Here, we test its impact on outbreak occurrences of 13 infectious diseases over Europe during the last fifty years, controlling for potential bias due to increased surveillance and detection. NAO variat...

Landholders have long used weather and climate information, based on experience and intuition, for planning and decision making on land or crop management. Over recent times, the availability of data bases of historical climatic information and the development of predictive tools ranging from correlation analysis to computer simulation models have made the climatic information useful to a much ...

A connection between El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and weather phenomena in eastern Australia has been recognized for several decades. However, little work has been devoted to addressing how this correlation affects hydrological system behaviour within regional-scale catchments. In this study, spatially distributed ENSO effects are evaluated in terms of monthly rainfall, evaporation, stre...