Search for sterile neutrinos by shower events at a future neutrino telescope

TL;DR

This paper proposes using large-volume, high-energy neutrino telescopes to improve constraints on sterile neutrino mixing by detecting dips in shower event rates, offering advantages over traditional experiments for certain mass-squared differences.

Contribution

It demonstrates the potential of future large-scale neutrino telescopes to enhance sterile neutrino searches and provides analytic formulas for oscillation probabilities under specific conditions.

Findings

Potential to improve constraints on $ heta_{14}$ for 1-100 eV$^2$ mass-squared differences.

Analytic expressions for oscillation probabilities under one mass scale dominance.

Detection of a dip in shower events as a signature of sterile neutrino mixing.

Abstract

It is pointed out that searching for sterile neutrinos at high energy regions at a future IceCube-like facility has advantages compared with that of reactor or short baseline accelerator neutrino experiments, in which the size of the detector and energy resolution make it difficult to gain good sensitivity for a large mass-squared difference. In this study we show that it is possible to improve constraints on sterile neutrino mixing $\theta_{14}$ for 1 eV$^2~\lesssim \Delta m_{41}^2\lesssim$ 100 eV$^2$ by looking for a dip in the shower events at an IceCube-like neutrino telescope whose volume is at least 10 times as large as that of IceCube and duration is 10 years. We also give an analytic expression for the oscillation probabilities in two cases where the condition of one mass scale dominance is satisfied.