Confusing Sterile Neutrinos with Deviation from Tribimaximal Mixing at Neutrino Telescopes

TL;DR

This paper investigates how sterile neutrinos can mimic signals of deviation from tribimaximal mixing in ultra high energy neutrino fluxes, highlighting potential confusion in future neutrino telescope observations.

Contribution

It demonstrates that sterile neutrinos can be mistaken for deviations from tribimaximal mixing in neutrino flux ratios, affecting interpretation of future data.

Findings

Sterile neutrinos can mimic deviations from tribimaximal mixing in flux ratios.

Flux ratios outside standard three-neutrino predictions may indicate sterile neutrinos.

Confusion between sterile neutrinos and mixing deviations is possible in upcoming telescopes.

Abstract

We expound the impact of extra sterile species on the ultra high energy neutrino fluxes in neutrino telescopes. We use three types of well-known flux ratios and compare the values of these flux ratios in presence of sterile neutrinos, with those predicted by deviation from the tribimaximal mixing scheme. We show that in the upcoming neutrino telescopes, its easy to confuse between the signature of sterile neutrinos with that of the deviation from tribimaximal mixing. We also show that if the measured flux ratios acquire a value well outside the range predicted by the standard scenario with three active neutrinos only, it might be possible to tell the presence of extra sterile neutrinos by observing ultra high energy neutrinos in future neutrino telescopes.