Using strong intense lasers to probe sterile neutrinos

TL;DR

This paper proposes using laser-induced polarization changes in neutrino beams to detect and analyze sterile neutrinos, offering a novel experimental approach for neutrino oscillation studies.

Contribution

It introduces a method to probe sterile neutrinos through laser-induced polarization oscillations in short baseline experiments, connecting laser physics with neutrino oscillation detection.

Findings

Circular polarization oscillates with distance, indicating neutrino oscillations.

The method can potentially measure active-sterile mixing amplitudes.

The approach offers a new way to study sterile neutrinos using laser interactions.

Abstract

A linearly polarized laser beam acquires its circular polarization by interacting with a neutrino beam for the reason that the gauge-couplings of left-handed neutrinos are parity-violated. Based on this phenomena, we study the oscillations of active and sterile neutrinos in short baseline neutrino experiments. Using the total fluxes of active and sterile neutrinos in the $3+1$ framework, we show that the rate of generating circular polarization oscillates as a function of the distance $L$ neutrinos propagating from the source to the detector. By measuring such oscillation, one can possibly determine the mixing amplitudes of active and sterile neutrinos and their squared-mass difference.