Optimization of a Very Low Energy Neutrino Factory for the Disappearance Into Sterile Neutrinos

Abstract

We discuss short-baseline electron and muon neutrino disappearance searches into sterile neutrinos at a Very Low Energy Neutrino Factory (VLENF) with a muon energy between about two and four GeV. A lesson learned from reactor experiments, such as Double Chooz and Daya Bay, is to use near and far detectors with identical technologies to reduce the systematical errors. We therefore derive the physics results from a combined near-far detector fit and illustrate that uncertainties on cross sections x efficiencies can be eliminated in a self-consistent way. We also include the geometry of the setup, i.e., the extension of the decay straight and the muon decay kinematics relevant at the near detector, and we demonstrate that these affect the sensitivities for Delta m^2 > 30 eV^2, where oscillations take place already in the near detector. Compared to appearance searches, we find that the sensitivity depends on the locations of both detectors and the muon energy, where the near detector should be as close as possible to the source, and the far detector at about 500 to 800m. In order to exclude the currently preferred parameter region, at least 10^19 useful muon decays per polarity are needed for E_mu=2 GeV, or, alternatively, a higher muon energy can be used.

16 pages, 6 figures

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• Neutrinos from Stored Muons nuSTORM: Expression of Interest
• Prospects for the measurement of muon-neutrino disappearance at the FNAL-Booster
• Sterile Neutrino Sensitivity with Wrong-Sign Muon Appearance at nuSTORM
• Search for Sterile Neutrinos at Long and Short Baselines
• Search for Sterile Neutrinos in the Muon Neutrino Disappearance Mode at FNAL
• The NESSiE Concept for Sterile Neutrinos
• Probing Lorentz Invariance Violation with Neutrino Factories
• The NESSiE way to searches for sterile neutrinos at FNAL