Probing invisible neutrino decay with KM3NeT-ORCA

Abstract

In the era of precision measurements of the neutrino oscillation parameters, upcoming neutrino experiments will also be sensitive to physics beyond the Standard Model. KM3NeT/ORCA is a neutrino detector optimised for measuring atmospheric neutrinos from a few GeV to around 100 GeV. In this paper, the sensitivity of the KM3NeT/ORCA detector to neutrino decay has been explored. A three-flavour neutrino oscillation scenario, where the third neutrino mass state ${\nu }_3$ decays into an invisible state, e.g. a sterile neutrino, is considered. We find that KM3NeT/ORCA would be sensitive to invisible neutrino decays with $1/{\alpha }_3={\tau }_3/m_3<180$~$ps/eV$ at $90\%$ confidence level, assuming true normal ordering. Finally, the impact of neutrino decay on the precision of KM3NeT/ORCA measurements for ${\theta }_{23}$, $\Delta m_{31}^2$ and mass ordering have been studied. No significant effect of neutrino decay on the sensitivity to these measurements has been found.

27 pages, 14 figures, bibliography updated, typos corrected

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