Constraining the invisible neutrino decay with KM3NeT-ORCA

• Main Authors: Fernández de Salas, Pablo, Pastor, Sergio, Ternes, C.A., Thakore, T., Tórtola, María Amparo
• Other Authors: Agencia Estatal de Investigación (España), Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (España), Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (España), Generalitat Valenciana
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Elsevier BV 2019
• Subjects: Neutrino decay; Neutrino telescopes; Neutrino oscillations; Neutrino masses and mixing; Orca
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/196344; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2018.12.066; https://doi.org/10.13039/501100003329; https://doi.org/10.13039/501100011033; https://doi.org/10.13039/501100003359

Several theories of particle physics beyond the Standard Model consider that neutrinos can decay. In this work we assume that the standard mechanism of neutrino oscillations is altered by the decay of the heaviest neutrino mass state into a sterile neutrino and, depending on the model, a scalar or a Majoron. We study the sensitivity of the forthcoming KM3NeT-ORCA experiment to this scenario and find that it could improve the current bounds coming from oscillation experiments, where three-neutrino oscillations have been considered, by roughly two orders of magnitude. We also study how the presence of this neutrino decay can affect the determination of the atmospheric oscillation parameters sin⁡θ and Δm , as well as the sensitivity to the neutrino mass ordering. Peer Reviewed