Light Sterile Neutrino Effects at theta_13-Sensitive Reactor Neutrino Experiments

Abstract

We study the impact of very light sterile neutrinos (Delta m^2_new around 1 to 10 times 10^(-2) eV^2, sin^2 2theta_new<10^(-1)) on upcoming theta_13-driven reactor antineutrino experiments like Double-CHOOZ and Daya Bay. Oscillations driven by these vales of Delta m^2_new affect data in the near and far detectors differently and hence potentially modify the capability of these experimental setups to constrain and measure sin^2 2theta_13. We find that the hypothesis theta_new different from zero negatively impacts one's ability to either place an upper bound on sin^2 2theta_13 in the advent of no oscillation signal or measure sin^2 2theta_13 if a theta_13-driven signal is observed. The impact of sterile neutrino effects, however, depends significantly on one's ability to measure the recoil positron energy spectrum. If sin^2 2theta_new is larger than 10^(-2), upcoming theta_13-driven reactor antineutrino experiments should be able to measure sin^2 2theta_new and Delta m^2_new, along with sin^2 2theta_13, as long as one is sensitive to distortions in the recoil positron energy spectrum in the near (and far) detectors.

12 pages, 7 eps figures

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Cited by in corpus (18)

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• Probing light sterile neutrino signatures at reactor and Spallation Neutron Source neutrino experiments
• A Sterile Neutrino at DUNE
• Short-Baseline Electron Neutrino Disappearance, Tritium Beta Decay and Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay
• An estimate of theta_14 independent of the reactor antineutrino flux determinations
• Sterile neutrinos beyond LSND at the Neutrino Factory
• Lepton-Jets and Low-Mass Sterile Neutrinos at Hadron Colliders
• Implications of sterile neutrinos for medium/long-baseline neutrino experiments and the determination of ${\theta }_{13}$
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• First Double-Chooz Results and the Reactor Antineutrino Anomaly
• Search for new physics with neutrinos at Radioactive Ion Beam facilities
• Testing Nonstandard Neutrino Properties with a Mössbauer Oscillation Experiment
• Charged lepton mixing via heavy sterile neutrinos