Improved Constraints on Sterile Neutrino Mixing from Disappearance Searches in the MINOS, MINOS+, Daya Bay, and Bugey-3 Experiments


الملخص بالإنكليزية

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$^2$.

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