Probing light sterile neutrinos in medium baseline reactor experiments

Author(s)

Esmaili, Arman ^[1] ; Kemp, Ernesto ^[1] ; Peres, O. L. G. ^{[1, 2]} ; Tabrizi, Zahra ^{[1, 3]}

Affiliation

^[1] Univ Estadual Campinas, Inst Fis Gleb Wataghin, BR-13083859 Campinas, SP - Brazil

^[2] Abdus Salaam Int Ctr Theoret Phys, Abdus Salam Int Ctr Theoret Phys, I-34010 Trieste - Italy

^[3] Inst Res Fundamental Sci IPM, Sch Particles & Accelerators, Tehran - Iran

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: Physical Review D; v. 88, n. 7 OCT 25 2013.
• Web of Science Citations: 12

Abstract

Medium- baseline reactor experiments (Double Chooz, Daya Bay and RENO) provide a unique opportunity to test the presence of light sterile neutrinos. We analyze the data of these experiments in the search of sterile neutrinos and also test the robustness of theta(13) determination in the presence of sterile neutrinos. We show that existence of a light sterile neutrino state improves the fit to these data moderately. We also show that the measured value of theta(13) by these experiments is reliable even in the presence of sterile neutrinos, and the reliability owes significantly to the Daya Bay and RENO data. From the combined analysis of the data of these experiments, we constrain the mixing of a sterile neutrino with Delta m(41)(2) similar to (10(-3)-10(-1)) eV(2) to sin(2)2 theta(14) less than or similar to 0.1 at 95% C.L. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 09/17924-5 - Neutrino phenomenology in neutrino telescopes
• Grantee: Arman Esmaili Taklimi
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• FAPESP's process: 10/07359-6 - Study of cosmic rays of highest energies with the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Grantee: Carola Dobrigkeit Chinellato
• Support Opportunities: Research Projects - Thematic Grants
• FAPESP's process: 12/16389-1 - Neutrino phenomenology
• Grantee: Orlando Luis Goulart Peres
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants