Implications of sterile neutrinos for medium/long-baseline neutrino experiments and the determination of ${\theta }_{13}$

Abstract

We revisit some of the recent neutrino observations and anomalies in the context of sterile neutrinos. Based on a general parametrization motivated in the presence of sterile neutrinos, the consistency of the MINOS disappearance data with additional sterile neutrinos is discussed. We also explore the implications of sterile neutrinos for the measurement of $|U_{\mu 3}|$ in this case. Regarding the determination of $|U_{e3}|$, we observe that the existence of sterile neutrinos may induce a significant modification of the ${\theta }_{13}$ angle in neutrino appearance experiments like T2K and MINOS, over and above the ambiguities and degeneracies that are already present in 3-neutrino parameter extractions. The modification is less significant in reactor neutrino experiments like Double-CHOOZ, Daya Bay and RENO and therefore the extracted $|U_{e3}|$ value when sterile neutrinos are present is close to the one that would be obtained in the 3-neutrino case. We also conclude that the results from T2K imply a 90% C.L. lower-bound on $|U_{e3}|$, in the "$3+2$" neutrino case, which is still within the sensitivity of future reactor neutrino experiments like Daya Bay, and consistent with the one-$\sigma$ range of ${\sin }^{2}2{\theta }_{13}$ recently reported by the Double-CHOOZ experiment. Finally, we argue that for the recently determined best-fit parameters, the results in the "$3+1$" scenario would be very close to the medium/long baseline results obtained in the "$3+2$" case analyzed in this work.

25 pages, 9 figures, revtex4-1. Typos corrected, published version

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• Neutrinos in Large Extra Dimensions and Short-Baseline ${\nu }_e$ Appearance
• Physics Reach of DUNE with a Light Sterile Neutrino
• Capabilities of long-baseline experiments in the presence of a sterile neutrino
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• Lepton-Jets and Low-Mass Sterile Neutrinos at Hadron Colliders
• Searches for new physics at the Hyper-Kamiokande experiment
• New precision measurements of free neutron beta decay with cold neutrons
• Neutrino Phenomenology in a 3+1+1 Framework
• Constraints on Sterile Neutrino Oscillations using DUNE Near Detector
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• The Effect of a Light Sterile Neutrino at NO$\nu$A and DUNE
• False Signals of CP-Invariance Violation at DUNE
• Physics Potential of ESS$\nu$SB in the presence of a Light Sterile Neutrino
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• Probing light sterile neutrinos in medium baseline reactor experiments
• Probing Sterile Neutrino Parameters with Double Chooz, Daya Bay and RENO
• Search for ${\nu }_{\mu }\to {\nu }_e$ oscillations with the OPERA experiment in the CNGS beam
• Light sterile neutrinos and their implications on currently running long-baseline and neutrinoless double beta decay experiments
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• Phenomenology of the Sterile Neutrinos