Abstract
We examine a strategy for using neutral current measurements in long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments to put limits on the existence of more than three light, active neutrinos. We determine the relative contributions of statistics, cross-section uncertainties, event misidentification and other systematic errors to the overall uncertainty of these measurements. As specific case studies, we make simulations of beams and detectors that are like the K2K, T2K and MINOS experiments. We find that the neutral current cross-section uncertainty and contamination of the neutral current signal by charge current events allow a sensitivity for determining the presence of sterile neutinos at the 0.10–0.15 level in probablility.
Highlights
In recent years a series of exciting experimental results have shown that neutrinos have finite masses and mixings
We present our results versus event rates and the size of the cross section uncertainty in order to show the dependence on these quantities
We show the 3σ sensitivity for Pμs versus Nμ0 for several values of the neutral current (NC) systematic error in Fig. 1
Summary
In recent years a series of exciting experimental results have shown that neutrinos have finite masses and mixings. Independent of whether or not the LSND results are confirmed by MiniBooNE[5], the three-flavor mixing framework deserves further experimental scrutiny in the coming years. Of interest in this paper is the measurement of the neutral current, which could allow tests of the unitarity of the 3×3 mixing matrix and indirectly probe the existence of sterile neutrinos. If additional light neutrinos mix with the three known flavors we can expect a non-zero oscillation probability to sterile neutrinos, P (νx → νs) = 0. In a realistic detector misidentifications of CC and NC events, together with systematic uncertainties on the relevent neutrino interaction cross sections, complicate the analysis. In this paper we study the use of NC measurements to determine limits on the sterile neutrino content in long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments. We present our results versus event rates and the size of the cross section uncertainty in order to show the dependence on these quantities
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