Impact of improved energy resolution on DUNE sensitivity in presence of a light sterile neutrino

TL;DR

This paper investigates how improved energy resolution in DUNE enhances its ability to measure neutrino parameters, especially when considering the presence of a light sterile neutrino, showing that better resolution improves sensitivities.

Contribution

It demonstrates that improved energy resolution significantly enhances DUNE's sensitivity to neutrino parameters in both standard and sterile neutrino scenarios.

Findings

Improved energy resolution enhances sensitivity to neutrino parameters.

Including a light sterile neutrino affects DUNE's measurement sensitivities.

Better energy resolution mitigates sensitivity loss due to new physics effects.

Abstract

The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) primarily aims to measure the yet unknown parameters of the standard three neutrino framework, i.e., the determination of Dirac CP phase ($\delta_{13}$), neutrino mass hierarchy (MH) and octant of $\theta_{23}$. In the present work, we consider the standard three neutrino paradigm (referred to as the $(3+0)$ case) and beyond with an additional light sterile neutrino (referred to as the $(3+1)$ case). We consider two configurations : standard energy resolution as in DUNE Technical Design Report (TDR) and improved energy resolution and study the impact of energy resolution in the $(3+0)$ and $(3+1)$ cases. In general, inclusion of subdominant new physics effects spoils the sensitivities. However, improved energy resolution leads to enhancement in sensitivities to the three unknowns in both $(3+0)$ and $(3+1)$ cases.