No Arabic abstract
Searches for electron antineutrino, muon neutrino, and muon antineutrino disappearance driven by sterile neutrino mixing have been carried out by the Daya Bay and MINOS+ collaborations. This Letter presents the combined results of these searches, along with exclusion results from the Bugey-3 reactor experiment, framed in a minimally extended four-neutrino scenario. Significantly improved constraints on the $theta_{mu e}$ mixing angle are derived that constitute the most stringent limits to date over five orders of magnitude in the sterile mass-squared splitting $Delta m^2_{41}$, excluding the 90% C.L. sterile-neutrino parameter space allowed by the LSND and MiniBooNE observations at 90% CL$_s$ for $Delta m^2_{41}<5,$eV$^2$.Furthermore, the LSND and MiniBooNE 99% C.L. allowed regions are excluded at 99% CL$_s$ for $Delta m^2_{41}$ $<$ 1.2 eV$^2$.
Searches for a light sterile neutrino have been performed independently by the MINOS and the Daya Bay experiments using the muon (anti)neutrino and electron antineutrino disappearance channels, respectively. In this Letter, results from both experiments are combined with those from the Bugey-3 reactor neutrino experiment to constrain oscillations into light sterile neutrinos. The three experiments are sensitive to complementary regions of parameter space, enabling the combined analysis to probe regions allowed by the LSND and MiniBooNE experiments in a minimally extended four-neutrino flavor framework. Stringent limits on $sin^2 2theta_{mu e}$ are set over 6 orders of magnitude in the sterile mass-squared splitting $Delta m^2_{41}$. The sterile-neutrino mixing phase space allowed by the LSND and MiniBooNE experiments is excluded for $Delta m^2_{41} < 0.8$ eV$^2$ at 95% CL$_s$.
The MINOS/MINOS+ experiment has recently reported stringent limits on $ u_mu$ disappearance that appear to rule out the 3+1 sterile neutrino model. However, in this paper we wish to point out problems associated with the MINOS/MINOS+ analysis. In particular, we find that MINOS/MINOS+ has either underestimated their systematic errors and/or has obtained evidence for physics beyond the 3-neutrino paradigm. Either case would invalidate the limits on $ u_mu$ disappearance.
Results are reported from a search for active to sterile neutrino oscillations in the MINOS long-baseline experiment, based on the observation of neutral-current neutrino interactions, from an exposure to the NuMI neutrino beam of $7.07times10^{20}$ protons on target. A total of 802 neutral-current event candidates is observed in the Far Detector, compared to an expected number of $754pm28rm{(stat.)}pm{37}rm{(syst.)}$ for oscillations among three active flavors. The fraction $f_s$ of disappearing umu that may transition to $ u_s$ is found to be less than 22% at the 90% C.L.
The MINOS experiment ran from 2003 until 2012 and collected a data sample including 10.71x10^20 protons-on-target (POT) of beam neutrinos, 3.36x10^20 POT of beam antineutrinos and an atmospheric neutrino exposure of 37.88 kt-yrs. The final measurement of the atmospheric neutrino oscillation parameters, dm^2_32 and theta_23, came from a full three flavour oscillation analysis of the combined CC nu_mu and CC anti-nu_mu beam and atmospheric samples and the CC nu_e and CC anti-nu_e appearance samples. This analysis yielded the most precise measurement of the atmospheric mass splitting dm^2_32 performed to date. The results are |dm^2_32|=[2.28 - 2.46]x10^-3 eV^2 (68%) and sin^{2}theta_23=0.35-0.65$ (90%) in the normal hierarchy, and |dm^2_32|=[2.32 - 2.53]x10^-3 eV^2 (68%) and sin^{2}theta_23=0.34-0.67 (90%) in the inverted hierarchy. The successor to MINOS in the NOvA era at FNAL, MINOS+, is now collecting data mostly in the 3-10 GeV region, and an analysis of nu_mu disappearance using the first 2.99x10^20 POT of data produced results very consistent with those from MINOS. Future data will further test the standard neutrino oscillation paradigm and allow for improved searches for exotic phenomena including sterile neutrinos, large extra dimensions and non-standard interactions.
We report an improved measurement of muon anti-neutrino disappearance over a distance of 735km using the MINOS detectors and the Fermilab Main Injector neutrino beam in a muon anti-neutrino enhanced configuration. From a total exposure of 2.95e20 protons on target, of which 42% have not been previously analyzed, we make the most precise measurement of the anti-neutrino atmospheric delta-m squared = 2.62 +0.31/-0.28 (stat.) +/- 0.09 (syst.) and constrain the anti-neutrino atmospheric mixing angle >0.75 (90%CL). These values are in agreement with those measured for muon neutrinos, removing the tension reported previously.