Speaker
Shaokai Yang
(University of Cincinnati)
Description
Contradictory evidence has been presented on the issue of neutrino mixing between the three known active neutrinos and light sterile neutrino species. Short-baseline neutrino oscillations observed by the LSND and MiniBooNE experiments, the collective evidence of the reactor neutrino anomaly, and the gallium anomaly all point towards sterile neutrinos with mass at the 1 eV level. While these results are tantalizing, they are not conclusive as they are in tension with null results from other short-baseline experiments, and with disappearance searches in long-baseline and atmospheric experiments. Resolving the issue of the existence of light sterile neutrinos has profound implications for both particle physics and cosmology. The NOvA (NuMI Off-Axis νe Appearance) experiment may clarify the situation by searching for disappearance of active neutrinos from the NuMI (Neutrinos from the Main Injector) beam over a baseline of 810 km. In this talk, we will introduce how NOvA can look for sterile neutrino mixing, with focus on disappearance of neutral current (NC) neutrino events. We will present NOvA’s sensitivity to a sterile oscillation signal and, for the case where no evidence is found, the NOvA prospects for improving existing constraints on sterile neutrino admixture in scenarios including one sterile neutrino.
| Oral or Poster Presentation | Oral |
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Primary author
Shaokai Yang
(University of Cincinnati)
