Sensitivity of reactor experiments to nonstandard neutrino interactions in beta decay rates

Abstract

We frame beta-minus decay rate perturbations in the context of charged-current (CC) nonstandard neutrino interactions (NSI). In particular, we first outline one NSI parameterization for modeling the CC NSI. Then, we demonstrate that the strength of the NSI constrained by beta-minus decay data is comparable to previously reported bounds on general CC NSI at $\mathcal{O}(10^{-4})$ to $\mathcal{O}(10^{-2})$. After discussing possible parameters involved in beta-minus decay NSI, we establish a working framework to probe potentially new physics in nuclear decay rates. Finally, we determine that current nuclear reactor technology could be used for experiments that are sensitive to these NSI parameters. These would include NSI contributions from two types of parameters: (i) the relative NSI effects from the three neutrino flavors and (ii) the change in flux of electron neutrinos through a decaying sample.

13 pages

References in corpus (6)

• Tests of the standard electroweak model in beta decay
• General bounds on non-standard neutrino interactions
• Recent probes of standard and non-standard neutrino physics with nuclei
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