Search for Sterile Neutrinos Mixing with Muon Neutrinos in MINOS

Abstract

We report results of a search for oscillations involving a light sterile neutrino over distances of 1.04 and 735 km in a ν_μ-dominated beam with a peak energy of 3 GeV. The data, from an exposure of 10.56×10^(20) protons on target, are analyzed using a phenomenological model with one sterile neutrino. We constrain the mixing parameters θ_(24) and Δm^2_(41) and set limits on parameters of the four-dimensional Pontecorvo-Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata matrix, |U_(μ4)|^2 and |U_(τ4)|^2, under the assumption that mixing between ν_e and ν_s is negligible (|U_(e4)|^2=0). No evidence for ν_μ→ν_s transitions is found and we set a world-leading limit on θ_(24) for values of Δm^2_(41)≲1  eV^2.

Additional Information

© 2016 American Physical Society. Received 6 July 2016; published 7 October 2016. This work was supported by the U.S. DOE, the U.K. STFC, the U.S. NSF, the State and University of Minnesota, and Brazil's FAPESP, CNPq and CAPES. We are grateful to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the personnel of the Soudan Laboratory and Fermilab. We thank the Texas Advanced Computing Center at The University of Texas at Austin for the provision of computing resources. We thank A. Smirnov and C. Giunti for useful discussions.

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Submitted - 1607.01176v4.pdf

Published - PhysRevLett.117.151803.pdf

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