Active-sterile neutrino oscillations at INO-ICAL over a wide mass-squared range
We perform a detailed analysis for the prospects of detecting active-sterile oscillations involving a light sterile neutrino, over a large \(\Delta m^2_{41}\) range of \(10^{-5}\) eV\(^2\) to \(10^2\) eV\(^2\), using 10 years of atmospheric neutrino data expected from the proposed 50 kt magnetized I...
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Published in | arXiv.org |
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Main Authors | , , , |
Format | Paper Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Ithaca
Cornell University Library, arXiv.org
16.08.2018
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | We perform a detailed analysis for the prospects of detecting active-sterile oscillations involving a light sterile neutrino, over a large \(\Delta m^2_{41}\) range of \(10^{-5}\) eV\(^2\) to \(10^2\) eV\(^2\), using 10 years of atmospheric neutrino data expected from the proposed 50 kt magnetized ICAL detector at the INO. This detector can observe the atmospheric \(\nu_{\mu}\) and \(\bar\nu_{\mu}\) separately over a wide range of energies and baselines, making it sensitive to the magnitude and sign of \(\Delta m^2_{41}\) over a large range. If there is no light sterile neutrino, ICAL can place competitive upper limit on \(|U_{\mu 4}|^2 \lesssim 0.02\) at 90\% C.L. for \(\Delta m^2_{41}\) in the range \((0.5 - 5) \times 10^{-3}\) eV\(^2\). For the same \(|\Delta m^2_{41}|\) range, ICAL would be able to determine its sign, exploiting the Earth's matter effect in \(\mu^{-}\) and \(\mu^{+}\) events separately if there is indeed a light sterile neutrino in Nature. This would help identify the neutrino mass ordering in the four-neutrino mixing scenario. |
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Bibliography: | IP/BBSR/2018-2, TIFR/TH/18-07 |
ISSN: | 2331-8422 |
DOI: | 10.48550/arxiv.1804.09613 |