Heavy neutrino search in accelerator-based experiments

Abstract

We explore the feasibility of detecting heavy neutrinos by the existing facilities of neutrino experiments. A heavy neutrino in the mass range 1 MeV ≲ M N ≲ 500 MeV is produced by pion or kaon decay, and decays to charged particles which leave signals in neutrino detectors. Taking the T2K experiment as a typical example, we estimate the heavy neutrino flux produced in the neutrino beam line. Due to massive nature of the heavy neutrino, the spectrum of the heavy neutrino is significantly different from that of the ordinary neutrinos. While the ordinary neutrinos are emitted to various directions in the laboratory frame due to their tiny masses, the heavy neutrinos tend to be emitted to the forward directions and frequently hit the detector. The sensitivity for the mixing parameters is studied by evaluating the number of signal events in the near detector ND280. For the electron-type mixing, the sensitivity of T2K at 1021 POT is found to be better than that of the previous experiment PS191, which has placed the most stringent bounds on the mixing parameters of the heavy neutrinos for 140 MeV ≲ M N ≲ 500 MeV.