Testing sterile neutrino mixing with present and future solar neutrino data

Abstract

We investigate the sensitivity of solar neutrino data to mixing of sterile neutrinos with masses $\gtrsim$ eV. For current data, we perform a Feldman-Cousins analysis to derive a robust limit on the sterile neutrino mixing. The solar neutrino limit excludes significant regions of the parameter space relevant to hints from reactor and radioactive gallium source experiments. We then study the sensitivity of upcoming solar neutrino data, most notably elastic neutrino-electron scattering in the DARWIN and DUNE experiments as well as coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering in DARWIN. These high precision measurements will increase the sensitivity to sterile neutrino mixing by about a factor of 4.5 compared to present limits. As a by-product, we introduce a simplified solar neutrino analysis using only four data points: the low- and high-energy ${\nu }_e$ survival and transition probabilities. We show that this simplified analysis is in excellent agreement with a full solar neutrino analysis; it is very easy to handle numerically and can be applied to any new physics model in which the energy dependence of the ${\nu }_e$ transition probabilities is not significantly modified.

24 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables. Accepted for publication in EPJC

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Cited by in corpus (23)

• MicroBooNE and the ${\nu }_e$ Interpretation of the MiniBooNE Low-Energy Excess
• Statistical significance of the sterile-neutrino hypothesis in the context of reactor and gallium data
• How to Identify Different New Neutrino Oscillation Physics Scenarios at DUNE
• Cosmology-friendly time-varying neutrino masses via the sterile neutrino portal
• Sterile Neutrino Searches with MicroBooNE: Electron Neutrino Disappearance
• Sterile Neutrino Shape-shifting Caused by Dark Matter
• Gallium Anomaly: Critical View from the Global Picture of ${\nu }_e$ and ${\bar{\nu }}_e$ Disappearance
• Solar neutrino physics
• Solar fusion III: New data and theory for hydrogen-burning stars
• MiniBooNE and MicroBooNE Combined Fit to a 3+1 Sterile Neutrino Scenario
• Pseudoscalar sterile neutrino self-interactions in light of Planck, SPT and ACT data
• Impact of Wave Packet Separation in Low-Energy Sterile Neutrino Searches
• $pp$ Solar Neutrinos at DARWIN
• Addressing the Short-Baseline Neutrino Anomalies with Energy-Dependent Mixing Parameters
• Search for Light Sterile Neutrinos With Two Neutrino Beams at MicroBooNE
• MeV Sterile Neutrino in light of the Cabibbo-Angle Anomaly
• Quasi-Sterile Neutrinos from Dark Sectors I. BSM matter effects in neutrino oscillations and the short-baseline anomalies
• Solar Model Independent Constraints on the Sterile Neutrino Interpretation of the Gallium Anomaly
• Restricting Sterile Neutrinos by Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay
• Multi-messenger Astronomy with Quenched Superradiance
• Towards First Detection of the Solar MSW Transition With JUNO
• Exploring nonstandard quark interactions through solar neutrino studies
• Impact of unitarity violation on sensitivity of the leptonic CP phase at Hyper-Kamiokande and DUNE