We present a search for an eV-scale sterile neutrino using 7.5 years of data from the IceCube DeepCore detector. The analysis uses a sample of 21,914 events with energies between 5 and 150 GeV to search for sterile neutrinos through atmospheric muon neutrino disappearance. Improvements in event selection and treatment of systematic uncertainties provide greater statistical power compared to previous DeepCore sterile neutrino searches. Our results are compatible with the absence of mixing between active and sterile neutrino states, and we place constraints on the mixing matrix elements and at 90% CL under the assumption that . These null results add to the growing tension between anomalous appearance results and constraints from disappearance searches in the sterile neutrino landscape. Published by the American Physical Society2024
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This content will become publicly available on September 1, 2027
Limiting the Parameter Space for Unstable eV-Scale Neutrinos Using IceCube Data
This Letter extends a recent IceCube sterile neutrino search to include unstable sterile neutrinos within the context of a model termed , which expands upon the model by introducing sterile neutrino decay to invisible particles with coupling constant . The model is attractive since it reduces tension between oscillation experiments within the global fits and with constraints that come from cosmological observables. The analysis uses 10.7 years of up-going muon neutrino data with energy 500 GeV to 100 TeV and with improved reconstruction and modeling of systematics. The best-fit point is found to be , , and , in agreement with the recent sterile neutrino search. Values of are excluded at 95% confidence level. This result substantially limits decay parameter space indicated by recent global fits, disfavoring the decay scenario.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2513077
- PAR ID:
- 10712120
- Author(s) / Creator(s):
- ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more »
- Publisher / Repository:
- Physical Review Letters- American Physical Society
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review Letters
- Volume:
- 137
- Issue:
- 10
- ISSN:
- 0031-9007
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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