Improved Constraints on Sterile Neutrino Mixing from Disappearance Searches in the MINOS, MINOS+, Daya Bay, and Bugey-3 Experiments

Abstract

Searches for electron antineutrino, muon neutrino, and muon antineutrino disappearance driven by sterile neutrino mixing have been carried out by the Daya Bay and MINOS+ collaborations. This Letter presents the combined results of these searches, along with exclusion results from the Bugey-3 reactor experiment, framed in a minimally extended four-neutrino scenario. Significantly improved constraints on the $\hat{I}{¸}_{\hat{I}¼e}$ mixing angle are derived that constitute the most stringent limits to date over five orders of magnitude in the sterile mass-squared splitting $\hat{I}”m_{41}^2$, excluding the 90% C.L. sterile-neutrino parameter space allowed by the LSND and MiniBooNE observations at 90% CL${}_s$ for $\hat{I}”m_{41}^2<5$eV${}^2$.Furthermore, the LSND and MiniBooNE 99% C.L. allowed regions are excluded at 99% CL${}_s$ for $\hat{I}”m_{41}^2$ $<$ 1.2 eV${}^2$.

8 pages, 4 figures