Sensitivity of atmospheric neutrino experiments to neutrino non-standard interactions

TL;DR

This paper evaluates how well future atmospheric neutrino experiments, specifically Hyper-Kamiokande, can detect non-standard neutrino interactions, potentially resolving existing tensions in neutrino mass difference measurements.

Contribution

It provides a detailed sensitivity analysis of Hyper-Kamiokande to neutrino non-standard interactions, assuming known mass hierarchy, and quantifies the significance of testing current best-fit values.

Findings

Hyper-Kamiokande can test the solar neutrino and KamLAND best-fit NSI values at over 8 sigma.

Global analysis NSI values can be tested at 5 sigma for normal hierarchy.

Sensitivity depends on the assumed neutrino mass hierarchy.

Abstract

We study the sensitivity of atmospheric neutrino experiments to the neutrino non-standard interactions (NSI) which is motivated by the tension between the two mass squared differences extracted from the KamLAND and solar neutrino experiments. In this study the sensitivity of the future Hyper-Kamiokande experiments for 4438 days to NSI is shown. Assuming that the mass hierarchy is known, we find that the best-fit value from the solar neutrino and KamLAND data can be tested at more than 8 $\sigma$, while the one from the global analysis can be examined at 5.0 $\sigma$ (1.4 $\sigma$) for the normal (inverted) mass hierarchy.