Restricting the LSND and MiniBooNE sterile neutrinos with the IceCube atmospheric neutrino data

Author(s)

Esmaili, Arman ; Smirnov, Alexei Yu.

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: Journal of High Energy Physics; v. N/A, n. 12, p. 26-pg., 2013-12-02.

Abstract

We study oscillations of the high energy atmospheric neutrinos in the Earth into sterile neutrinos with the eV-scale mass. The MSW resonance and parametric enhancement of the (nu) over bar (mu) -> (nu) over bar (s) oscillations lead to distortion of the zenith angle distribution of the muon-track events which can be observed by IceCube. Due to matter effect, the IceCube signal depends not only on the mixing element U-mu 4 relevant for LSND and MiniBooNE but also on U-tau 4 and the CP-violating phase delta(24). We show that the case with U-tau 4 = delta(24) = 0 leads to the weakest IceCube signal and therefore should be used to bound U-mu 4. We compute the zenith angle distributions of the nu(mu)-events for different energy intervals in the range (0.1 - 10) TeV and find that inclusion of the energy information (binning in energy) improves the sensitivity to nu(s) drastically. We estimate that with already collected (during 3 - 4 years) IceCube statistics the bound vertical bar U-mu 4 vertical bar(2) < 0.01 (99% C.L.) can be established and the mixing required by LSND and MiniBooNE can be excluded at (4-6)sigma confidence level. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 09/17924-5 - Neutrino phenomenology in neutrino telescopes
• Grantee: Arman Esmaili Taklimi
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral