NOvA's Current and Future Sterile Neutrino Searches

TL;DR

The NOvA experiment conducts a search for eV-scale sterile neutrinos using muon neutrino and neutral current data from near and far detectors, aiming to improve sensitivity especially in the high m_{41} region, and plans to incorporate additional data to enhance results.

Contribution

This work presents the current NOvA sterile neutrino search strategy and outlines future plans to include Booster Neutrino Beam data for improved sensitivity.

Findings

Current analysis limits m_{41}  1 eV^2 region.

Systematic uncertainties dominate the high m_{41} parameter space.

Future plans include adding Booster Neutrino Beam data.

Abstract

The NOvA experiment's most recent search for eV-scale sterile neutrinos under a 3+1 model simultaneously analyses muon neutrino and neutral current datasets from the NuMI beam at its Near ($\sim$\qty{1}{km} baseline) and Far (\qty{810}{km} baseline) detectors to look for oscillations consistent with a sterile neutrino. The analysis is systematically limited in the region of parameter space where $\Delta m^2_{41} \gtrsim 1~\mathrm{eV}^2$. This region of parameter space is preferred by sterile neutrino interpretations of current experimental anomalies and so improving sensitivity here is high-priority. These proceedings present our current search strategy, and discusses future plans to include data from a second beamline, the Booster Neutrino Beam, to improve our sensitivity in systematics-dominated regions of parameter space.