Constraining Sterile Neutrinos with AMANDA and IceCube Atmospheric Neutrino Data

TL;DR

This paper shows how atmospheric neutrino data from AMANDA and IceCube can limit the properties of a hypothetical sterile neutrino, surpassing other experimental constraints, and discusses IceCube's future sensitivity to this model.

Contribution

It provides novel constraints on sterile neutrino parameters using atmospheric neutrino data from AMANDA and IceCube, highlighting IceCube's potential for future sensitivity.

Findings

Atmospheric neutrino data constrains sterile neutrino parameter space.

IceCube's current data already limits sterile neutrino models.

Future IceCube data will further improve constraints.

Abstract

We demonstrate that atmospheric neutrino data accumulated with the AMANDA and the partially deployed IceCube experiments constrain the allowed parameter space for a hypothesized fourth sterile neutrino beyond the reach of a combined analysis of all other experiments. We also illustrate the sensitivity of the completed IceCube detector, that is now taking data, to the parameter space of 3+1 model.