Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: Neutrino telescopes provide strong sensitivity to sterile-neutrino oscillations through matter effects occurring in the few TeV energy range for ${\mathrm{eV}}^{2}$-scale neutrino mass-squared splittings. Prior searches have focused on ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}$ disappearance, which has a particularly strong sensitivity to the mixing angle ${\ensuremath{\theta}}_{24}$ via ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\ensuremath{\nu}}_{s}$ transitions. Nowadays, the ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\ensuremath{\nu}}_{e}$ and ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\ensuremath{\tau}}$ appearance channels have been considered less promising at neutrino telescopes, due in part to the much smaller target volume for cascades relative to tracks. This work explores the detectability of these signatures at neutrino telescopes given present constraints on sterile-neutrino mixing, and as an example, forecasts the sensitivity of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory to the mixing angles ${\ensuremath{\theta}}_{14}$, ${\ensuremath{\theta}}_{24}$, and ${\ensuremath{\theta}}_{34}$ in the $3+1$ sterile-neutrino model using the cascade channel with 10 yr of data. We find that ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\ensuremath{\tau}}$ appearance signatures consistent with the existing IceCube ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}$ disappearance best-fit point are discoverable for values of ${\ensuremath{\theta}}_{34}$ consistent with world constraints, and that the sterile-neutrino parameters favored by the BEST and gallium anomalies are expected to be testable at the 95% confidence level.
Language: English
Topic: Neutrino Physics Research
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W3212979502