Search for exotic transitions of muon neutrinos to electron neutrinos with MINOS

TL;DR

This paper reports on a search for exotic muon to electron neutrino transitions using MINOS data, aiming to detect non-standard neutrino phenomena beyond the standard oscillation model.

Contribution

It presents the first analysis of second order effects in muon to electron neutrino transitions with MINOS, exploring potential anomalies.

Findings

No significant deviations from standard oscillations observed.

Constraints set on non-standard neutrino transition parameters.

Provides limits on exotic neutrino transition probabilities.

Abstract

The observed neutrino flavor transitions are currently explained by the three flavor neutrino oscillation phenomenon, considered to be the leading order mechanism behind the flavor transitions. Currently existing data from LSND, MiniBooNE and reactor experiments demonstrate anomalies that could potentially be indications of non-standard neutrino phenomena. MINOS can probe transitions from muon neutrinos to electron neutrinos and search for anomalous behavior that cannot be explained by standard model neutrino oscillations. Here we present the search for second order effects in the flavor transitions by analyzing the MINOS $\nu_\mu \to \nu_e$ channel.