Measuring active-to-sterile neutrino oscillations with neutral current coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering

2012/01/18 by A. J. Anderson, J. M. Conrad, E. Figueroa-Feliciano +6 · 82 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Charged current #Cyclotron #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Detector #Electron #Measurements of neutrino speed #Muon #Neutral current #Neutrino #Neutrino Physics Research #Neutrino detector #Neutrino oscillation #Nuclear physics #Optics #Oscillation (cell signaling) #Particle physics #Physics #Pion #Proton #Scattering #Solar neutrino #Sterile neutrino #hep-ex #hep-ph #physics.ins-det

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.86.013004

published in Physical review. D. Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology/Physical review. D. Particles and fields 86(1) (American Physical Society) · 10 pages, 7 figures

arxiv created 2012/01/18 · openalex publication_date 2012/07/02 · arxiv updated 2013/05/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Light sterile neutrinos have been introduced as an explanation for a number of oscillation signals at \ensuremathΔm²\ensuremath∼1 eV². Neutrino oscillations at relatively short baselines provide a probe of these possible new states. This paper describes an accelerator-based experiment using neutral current coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering to strictly search for active-to-sterile neutrino oscillations. This experiment could, thus, definitively establish the existence of sterile neutrinos and provide constraints on their mixing parameters. A cyclotron-based proton beam can be directed to multiple targets, producing a low-energy pion and muon decay-at-rest neutrino source with variable distance to a single detector. Two types of detectors are considered: a germanium-based detector inspired by the SuperCDMS design and a liquid argon detector inspired by the proposed CLEAR experiment.

Citations

• Reactor antineutrino anomaly
• Neutrino detection with CLEAN
• New results from the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment
• The next-generation liquid-scintillator neutrino observatory LENA
• Combined analysis of short-baseline neutrino experiments in the(3+1)and(3+2)sterile neutrino oscillation hypotheses
• 4-Neutrino mass schemes and the likelihood of (3+1)-mass spectra
• Measurement of the Neutrino Mass Splitting and Flavor Mixing by MINOS
• Search for Active Neutrino Disappearance Using Neutral-Current Interactions in the MINOS Long-Baseline Experiment
• Improved predictions of reactor antineutrino spectra
• Measuring active-sterile neutrino oscillations with a stopped pion neutrino source
• Evidence for neutrino oscillations from the observation ofν¯eappearance in aν¯μbeam
• Limits on Muon-Neutrino Oscillations in the Mass Range30<Δm2<1000eV2/c4

Cited by

• Astrophysical constraints on nonstandard coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering
• Future CEvNS experiments as probes of lepton unitarity and light sterile neutrinos