Sensitivity to light sterile neutrino mixing parameters with KM3NeT/ORCA

• Published in: Journal of High Energy Physics
• Main Authors: Aiello, S., Albert, A., Alshamsi, M., Alves, Garre, Aly, Z., Ambrosone, A., Ameli, F., Andre, M., Androulakis, G., Anghinolfi, M., Anguita, M., Anton, G., Ardid, M., Ardid, S., Aublin, J., Bagatelas, C., Baret, B., Basegmez, du, Bendahman, M., Benfenati, F., Berbee, E., van den Berg, A.M., Bertin, V., Biagi, S., Bissinger, M., Boettcher, M., Bou, Cabo, Boumaaza, J., Bouta, M., Bouwhuis, M., Bozza, C., Brânzaş, H., Bretaudeau, F., Bruijn, R., Brunner, J., Bruno, R., Buis, E., Buompane, R., Busto, J., Caiffi, B., Calvo, D., Campion, S., Capone, A., Carretero, V., Castaldi, P., Celli, S., Chabab, M., Chau, N., Chen, A., Cherubini, S.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Germany, Springer 2021
• Subjects: XXXXXX - Unknown; Orca
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP10(2021)180; http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:67031

KM3NeT/ORCA is a next-generation neutrino telescope optimised for atmospheric neutrino oscillations studies. In this paper, the sensitivity of ORCA to the presence of a light sterile neutrino in a 3+1 model is presented. After three years of data taking, ORCA will be able to probe the active-sterile mixing angles θ14, θ24, θ34 and the effective angle θμe, over a broad range of mass squared difference ∆m412 ∼ [10−5, 10] eV2, allowing to test the eV-mass sterile neutrino hypothesis as the origin of short baseline anomalies, as well as probing the hypothesis of a very light sterile neutrino, not yet constrained by cosmology. ORCA will be able to explore a relevant fraction of the parameter space not yet reached by present measurements.