Cosmic Neutrinos as a Window to Departures from Special Relativity

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The author reviewed that the cosmic neutrinos as tools to test deviations from special relativity. The article generally focuses on two types of models, Lorentz invariance violation and Doubly special relativity, which go beyond special relativity. However, I find that some statements are not clear enough, such as the description of Doubly special relativity and its difference with Lorentz invariance violation. In additions, the experimental principle for how to test the deviations of special relativity by detecting cosmic neutrinos is not specific enough. There are several testable parameters in the case of Lorentz invariance violation, such as the Lorentz-violating coefficients in the SME. Cosmic neutrinos can be used to set constraints on the corresponding coefficients. I suggest authors to add a description of which parameters can be limited by cosmic neutrinos.

Author Response

We thank the referee for his/her report about our work.

Following his/her comments and suggestions, we have tried to make more clear the short description of Doubly Special Relativity, emphasizing what its main ingredient is, a modified composition of energy and momentum, which does not appear in the case of Lorentz Invariance Violation. We have slightly changed the structure of section 2 separating the LIV and DSR cases in different subsections and we have added two paragraphs.

We agree with the referee that the review is not specific enough on a quantitative use of experiments to test the deviations of Special Relativity. In the case of LIV, such tests would require to consider different scenarios depending on how LIV affects the kinematics of all the particles involved in the production, propagation, and detection of cosmic neutrinos. In the case of DSR, one has different models depending on the choice of the modified composition of energy and momentum and the quantitative analysis should be done for each model. We think that such studies can be the subject of future more specific works going beyond the aim of the present review. We have added a paragraph at the beginning of the last section of the paper stating clearly the limitations of the review. 

We include a copy of the revised version with the modifications introduced in red color. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In their paper titled "Cosmic neutrinos as a window to departures from special relativity" the authors, José Manuel Carmona, José Luis Cortés, José Javier Relancio and Maykoll A. Reyes, review current state of the science on cosmic high-energy neutrinos. They review the production, propagation and detection of neutrinos, and also the neutrino physics beyond Special Relativity. After the Introduction, four sections are dedicated to the different aspects of neutrino physics: "Beyond special relativity", "Production of high-energy cosmic neutrinos", "Propagation of cosmic neutrinos", "Detection of cosmic neutrinos". In the last section authors give a discussion and they describe future prospects on the topic. The paper has 74 citations, which is a sufficiently large number given this is a review. I think the paper is generally well written, deal with current problems regarding the topic, and generally a good summary of the current state of the science on cosmic high-energy neutrinos. One weakness is that there is no new results in the paper, but since this is a review this might be not a strong weakness. Since our observational window utilizing the high-energy cosmic neutrinos is just opened about ten years ago when the Antarctic IceCube Neutrino Detector recorded their diffuse flux, first time ever, there is a lot to do, and this paper summarizes the present and future aspects clearly and logically. I would recommend the paper to be published in the present form.

Author Response

We thank the referee for his/her positive comments about our work. We include here a new version of the manuscript with some additions in red color motivated by the answer to the report of another referee.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf