A Sterile Neutrino Search with Kaon Decay-at-rest

TL;DR

This paper proposes using monoenergetic muon neutrinos from kaon decay-at-rest in conjunction with liquid argon detectors to search for sterile neutrinos, leveraging existing proton facilities for high-sensitivity experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel experimental approach combining kaon decay-at-rest neutrino sources with liquid argon detectors to enhance sterile neutrino searches.

Findings

Potential for discovery-level sensitivity to sterile neutrinos.

Feasibility of using existing proton facilities for this experiment.

Enhanced detection capability with liquid argon TPCs.

Abstract

Monoenergetic muon neutrinos (235.5 MeV) from positive kaon decay-at-rest are considered as a source for an electron neutrino appearance search. In combination with a liquid argon time projection chamber based detector, such a source could provide discovery-level sensitivity to the neutrino oscillation parameter space indicative of a sterile neutrino. Current and future intense >3 GeV kinetic energy proton facilities around the world can be employed for this experimental concept.