Neutrino Energy Estimation in Neutral Current Interactions and Prospects for Sterile Neutrino Searches

Abstract

Modern neutrino detectors, particularly the large liquid argon time projection chambers (LAr TPCs) at SBN and DUNE, provide an unprecedented amount of information about GeV-scale interactions. By taking advantage of the excellent spatial and calorimetric resolution as well as the low tracking thresholds provided by LAr TPCs, we present a novel method of estimating the neutrino energy in neutral current interactions. This method has potential implications for the search for a sterile neutrino; it allows for the potential observation of spectral distortions due to sterile neutrino-induced oscillations in the neutral current neutrino energy spectrum. As an example, we use this method to perform an analysis of the statistics-only sensitivity to sterile neutrinos in the neutral current channel at SBN under a 3+1 model.

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• Improved Constraints on Sterile Neutrino Mixing from Disappearance Searches in the MINOS, MINOS+, Daya Bay, and Bugey-3 Experiments
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• Reconstruction and Measurement of $\mathcal{O}$(100) MeV Energy Electromagnetic Activity from ${\pi }^0\to \gamma \gamma$ Decays in the MicroBooNE LArTPC
• Prospects of Light Sterile Neutrino Oscillation and CP Violation Searches at the Fermilab Short Baseline Neutrino Facility

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Tau Neutrinos in the Next Decade: from GeV to EeV
• Demonstration of neutron identification in neutrino interactions in the MicroBooNE liquid argon time projection chamber