Search for sterile neutrinos with SOX: Monte Carlo studies of the experiment sensitivity and systematic effects

D Basilico,J Martyn,B Neumair

doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1342/1/012107

Abstract

Some neutrino experiments reveal anomalous results which can make room for new physics beyond the three-flavor neutrino oscillation model. These hints suggest the existence of sterile neutrinos with mass m <eV. SOX will be a short-baseline disappearance experiment aiming to test this hypotesis, performed with the liquid scintillator detector Borexino at Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy [1]. Due to the good energy and position resolution, a light sterile neutrino can create an oscillatory pattern in the signal. The SOX sensitivity, the related analysis and systematics will be briefly discussed.

Highlights

The SOX project aims to test the hypothesis of existence of sterile neutrinos with ∆m214 ∼ eV2 through a short baseline disappearance experiment performed with the liquid scintillator detector
Measuring the event interaction position and the event energy (E), an oscillated signature can be observed in case of a sterile neutrino
The rate analysis is a standard disappearance technique, performed in many short-baseline experiments, which consists in the total rate counting to be compared with the expected one (∼ 104 events)

Summary

International Conference on Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics

D Basilico, B Neumair and J Martyn (on behalf of the Borexino/SOX Collaboration∗): ∗M Agostini, K Altenmuller, S Appel, V Atroshchenko, Z Bagdasarian, D Basilico, G Bellini, J Benziger, D Bick, G Bonfini, D Bravo, B Caccianiga, F Calaprice, A Caminata, S Caprioli, M Carlini, P Cavalcante, A Chepurnov, K Choi, O Cloue, L Collica, M Cribier, D D’Angelo, S Davini, A Derbin, X F Ding, A Di Ludovico, L Di Noto, I Drachnev, M. S Farinon, V Fischer, K Fomenko, A Formozov, D Franco, F Gabriele, J Gaffiot, C Galbiati, M Gschwender, C Ghiano, M Giammarchi, A Goretti, M Gromov, D Guffanti, C Hagner, T Houdy, E Hungerford, Aldo Ianni, Andrea Ianni, N Jonqueres, A Jany, D Jeschke, V Kobychev, D Korablev, G Korga, V Kornoukhov, D Kryn, T Lachenmaier, T Lasserre, M Laubenstein, E Litvinovich, F Lombardi, P Lombardi, L Ludhova, G Lukyanchenko, L Lukyanchenko, I Machulin, G Manuzio, S Marcocci, J Maricic, G Mention, J Martyn, E Meroni, M Meyer, L Miramonti, M Misiaszek, V Muratova, R Musenich, B Neumair, L Oberauer, B Opitz, V Orekhov, F Ortica, M Pallavicini, L Papp, O Penek, N Pilipenko, A Pocar, A Porcelli, G Ranucci, A Razeto, A Re, M Redchuk, A Romani, R Roncin, N Rossi, S Rottenanger, S Schonert, L Scola, D Semenov, M Skorokhvatov, O Smirnov, A Sotnikov, L F F Stokes, Y Suvorov, R Tartaglia, G Testera, J Thurn, M Toropova, E Unzhakov, C Veyssiere, A Vishneva, M Vivier, R B Vogelaar, F von Feilitzsch, H Wang, S Weinz, M Wojcik, M Wurm, Z Yokley, O Zaimidoroga, S Zavatarelli, K Zuber and G Zuzel

Introduction

Findings

Detector related systematics - preliminary results