A search for sterile neutrinos at ultrahigh energies at the Pierre Auger Observatory

Abstract

We investigate the sensitivity of the Pierre Auger Observatory to sterile neutrinos with masses in the MeV-to-100 MeV range. To this end, we consider a minimal $3+1$ framework in which a single sterile state mixes mainly with the ${\nu }_{\tau }$ flavor through an active--sterile mixing angle ${\theta }_N$ to produce a mass eigenstate $N_1$. At ultrahigh energies, $N_1$ neutrinos can traverse substantial chord lengths through the Earth and interact through their active component, producing $\tau$ leptons that may emerge near the surface and decay in the atmosphere, thereby generating detectable air showers. We compute the corresponding exposures with a detailed Monte Carlo simulation of neutrino propagation, interactions, $\tau$ energy losses and decay, and derive upper limits at $90\%$ confidence level on an isotropic diffuse flux of $N_1$ neutrinos. For an $E^{-2}$ spectrum, we obtain $E^2{\Phi }_N\le 2\times 10^{-9}{\sin }^{-2}{\theta }_N\mathrm{GeV}\mathrm{c}{\mathrm{m}}^{-2}\mathrm{s}{\mathrm{r}}^{-1}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$ over $0.3$--$200$ EeV for ${\sin }^2{\theta }_N\lesssim 10^{-1}$. We further consider $N_1$ neutrinos arising from the decay of a superheavy dark-matter particle. For a benchmark dark-matter mass of $10^{13}$ GeV, we derive constraints on the active--sterile mixing angle and dark-matter lifetime for sterile-neutrino masses of $10$ and $100$ MeV. These results illustrate the potential of the Observatory to probe long-lived weakly interacting particles.

arXiv comment18 pages, 4 figures