Constraining sterile neutrinos with a low energy beta-beam

TL;DR

This paper proposes using a low energy beta-beam facility to detect sterile neutrinos through electron anti-neutrino disappearance, leveraging inverse beta decay for a clean, hadronic-uncertainty-free measurement.

Contribution

It introduces a novel experimental setup with specific parameters to effectively constrain sterile neutrino properties independently of CP violation effects.

Findings

Can constrain mixing angles as small as 0.01 at 99% CL

Uses inverse beta decay to avoid hadronic uncertainties

Requires moderate detector size and ion production rates

Abstract

We show that a low energy beta-beam facility can be used to search for sterile neutrinos by measuring the disappearance of electron anti-neutrinos. This channel is particularly sensitive since it allows to use inverse beta decay as detection reaction; thus it is free from hadronic uncertainties, provided the neutrino energy is below the pion production threshold. This corresponds to a choice of the Lorentz gamma=30 for the 6He parent ion. Moreover, a disappearance measurement allows the constraint of sterile neutrino properties independently of any CP violating effects. A moderate detector size of a few 100 tons and ion production rates of 2E13 per second are sufficient to constrain mixing angles as small as \sin^22\theta=0.01 at 99% confidence level.