Non-Standard Interaction Effects at Reactor Neutrino Experiments

TL;DR

This paper investigates how non-standard interactions can affect reactor neutrino experiments, potentially mimicking standard oscillation signals and influencing measurements of mixing angles, even when  is zero.

Contribution

It provides generic formulas for oscillation probabilities with NSIs and explores their impact on key mixing angles in reactor neutrino experiments.

Findings

NSIs can mimic  effects in experiments.

NSIs can cause observable oscillations even if =0.

Mappings between fundamental and effective mixing parameters are established.

Abstract

We study non-standard interactions (NSIs) at reactor neutrino experiments, and in particular, the mimicking effects on \theta_13. We present generic formulas for oscillation probabilities including NSIs from sources and detectors. Instructive mappings between the fundamental leptonic mixing parameters and the effective leptonic mixing parameters are established. In addition, NSI corrections to the mixing angles \theta_13 and \theta_12 are discussed in detailed. Finally, we show that, even for a vanishing \theta_13, an oscillation phenomenon may still be observed in future short baseline reactor neutrino experiments, such as Double Chooz and Daya Bay, due to the existences of NSIs.