Probing non-standard neutrino interactions at neutrino factories

• Published in: Journal of physics. Conference series Vol. 136; no. 4; p. 042092
• Main Authors: Ribeiro, N Cipriano, Minakata, H, Nunokawa, H, Uchinami, S, Funchal, R Zukanovich
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol IOP Publishing 01.11.2008
• Subjects: Detectors; Factories; Industrial plants; Leptons; Neutrinos; Parameter sensitivity; Physics
• ISSN: 1742-6596; 1742-6588; 1742-6596
• DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/136/4/042092

Based on the work by N. Cipriano Ribeiro et. al., JHEP 0712, 002 (2007) [arXiv:0709.1980 [hep-ph]], in this poster, we discuss the potential of a neutrino factory to probe the so called non-standard neutrino interactions (NSI) with matter, which may exist as a low-energy manifestation of physics beyond the Standard Model. Using the appearance modes νe ⟩ νμ/e⟩μ, we demonstrate how powerful is the setting of two detectors with different baselines, one at L 3000 km and the other at L 7000 km, where the latter is nearly at the magic baseline which is known to have a great sensitivity to matter density determination. Assuming the effects of NSI at the production and the detection are negligible, we study the impact of NSI in the neutrino propagation, and determine the sensitivity to NSI parameters, εαβ, and at the same time discuss how the determination of θ13 and δ is affected. We found that the effect of synergy of combing two detectors is significant, providing high sensitivity to NSI parameters and powerful enough to resolve the confusion between θ13 and the NSI effect. We obtain, for example, at sin2 2θ13 10−4, the sensitivity of |εeτ| a few x 10−3 at 3σ CL for 2 degrees of freedom, without loosing much the sensitivity to θ13 and δ. Our results imply that neutrino factory can be a hunting machine for NSI while keeping its primary function of performing precision measurements of the lepton mixing parameters.