New reactor data improves robustness of neutrino mass ordering determination

Abstract

In neutrino oscillation physics numerous exact degeneracies exist under the name LMA-Dark. These degeneracies make it impossible to determine the sign of $\Delta m_{31}^2$ known as the atmospheric mass ordering with oscillation experiments alone in the presence of new neutrino interactions. The combination of different measurements including multiple oscillation channels and neutrino scattering experiments lifts some aspects of these degeneracies. In fact, previous measurements of coherent elastic neutrino nucleus scattering (CEvNS) by COHERENT already ruled out the LMA-Dark solution for new physics with mediators heavier than $M_{Z^{\prime }}\sim 50$ MeV while cosmological considerations disfavor these scenarios for mediators lighter than $M_{Z^{\prime }}\sim 3$ MeV. Here we leverage new data from the Dresden-II experiment which provides the strongest bounds on CEvNS with reactor neutrinos to date. We show that this data completely removes the degeneracies in the ${\nu }_e$ sector for mediators down to the MeV scale at which point constraints from the early universe take over. While the LMA-Dark degeneracy is lifted in the ${\nu }_e$ sector, it can still be restored in the ${\nu }_{\mu }$ and ${\nu }_{\tau }$ sector or with very specific couplings to up and down quarks, and we speculate on a path forward.

11 pages, 8 figures, comments welcome! v2: clarifying remarks, matches published version

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Cited by in corpus (18)

• Measurement of the Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering Cross Section on CsI by COHERENT
• Physics implications of a combined analysis of COHERENT CsI and LAr data
• How to Identify Different New Neutrino Oscillation Physics Scenarios at DUNE
• A Direct Detection View of the Neutrino NSI Landscape
• Bounds on new neutrino interactions from the first CE$\nu$NS data at direct detection experiments
• Physics implications of recent Dresden-II reactor data
• Neutrino Constraints and the ATOMKI X17 Anomaly
• Reactor antineutrinos CE$\nu$NS on germanium: CONUS+ and TEXONO as a new gateway to SM and BSM physics
• Solar Neutrinos and the Strongest Oscillation Constraints on Scalar NSI
• On the impact of the Migdal effect in reactor CE$\nu$NS experiments
• Searching for Axial Neutral Current Non-Standard Interactions of neutrinos by DUNE-like experiments
• Neutrino Non-standard Interactions with arbitrary couplings to u and d quarks
• Impact of scalar NSI on the neutrino mass ordering sensitivity at DUNE, HK and KNO
• Light vector bosons and the weak mixing angle in the light of future germanium-based reactor CE$\nu$NS experiments
• Testing New Physics in Oscillations at a Neutrino Factory
• Testing the dark side of neutrino oscillations with the solar neutrino fog at Dark Matter experiments
• Towards First Detection of the Solar MSW Transition With JUNO
• Neutrino NSI in archaeological Pb