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eV-Scale Sterile Neutrino Search Using Eight Years of Atmospheric Muon Neutrino Data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory

M. G. Aartsen et al. (IceCube Collaboration)
Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 141801 – Published 30 September 2020
Physics logo See synopsis: No Sterile Neutrinos from Eight Years of IceCube
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  • Introduction.—
  • IceCube up-going track sample.—
  • Sterile meutrino snalysis.—
  • Systematic uncertainties.—
  • Results.—
  • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    • References

    Abstract

    The results of a 3+1 sterile neutrino search using eight years of data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory are presented. A total of 305 735 muon neutrino events are analyzed in reconstructed energy-zenith space to test for signatures of a matter-enhanced oscillation that would occur given a sterile neutrino state with a mass-squared differences between 0.01 and 100  eV2. The best-fit point is found to be at sin2(2θ24)=0.10 and Δm412=4.5  eV2, which is consistent with the no sterile neutrino hypothesis with a p value of 8.0%.

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    • Received 8 June 2020
    • Accepted 31 August 2020

    DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.141801

    Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

    Published by the American Physical Society

    Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

    1. Physical Systems
    Sterile neutrinos
    1. Techniques
    Neutrino detection
    Particles & Fields

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    No Sterile Neutrinos from Eight Years of IceCube

    Published 30 September 2020

    An analysis of more than 300,000 muon neutrino detections provides no evidence of sterile neutrinos—a finding at odds with other experiments.

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    Searching for eV-scale sterile neutrinos with eight years of atmospheric neutrinos at the IceCube Neutrino Telescope

    M. G. Aartsen et al. (IceCube Collaboration)
    Phys. Rev. D 102, 052009 (2020)

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    Vol. 125, Iss. 14 — 2 October 2020

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    • Figure 1
      Figure 1

      Muon-antineutrino oscillogram. Atmospheric ν¯μ disappearance probability vs true energy and cosine zenith at the globally preferred sterile neutrino hypothesis of Ref. [11] [Δm412=1.3  eV2, sin2(2θ24)=0.07, sin2(2θ34)=0.0]. Effects include a matter-enhanced resonance at TeV energies, neutrino absorption at high energy and small zenith, and vacuumlike oscillation at low energies. The matter-enhanced resonance appears only in the antineutrino flux for the case of small angles and Δm412>0. Vertical white lines indicate transitions between inner to outer core [cos(θνtrue)=−0.98] and outer core to mantle [cos(θztrue)=−0.83].

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    • Figure 2
      Figure 2

      Reconstructed muon energy. Data points are shown as black markers with error bars that represent the statistical error. The solid blue and red lines show the best-fit sterile neutrino hypothesis and the null (no sterile neutrino) hypothesis, respectively, with nuisance parameters set to their best-fit values in each case.

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    • Figure 3
      Figure 3

      Best-fit signal shapes compared to data. Top: the signal shape at the best-fit point compared to the null hypothesis with the same nuisance parameters. Bottom: data compared to the null hypothesis with the nuisance parameters held at the same values.

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    • Figure 4
      Figure 4

      Frequentist analysis result. The 90% and 99% C.L. contours, assuming Wilks’s theorem, shown as dashed and solid bold blue lines, respectively. The green and yellow band shows the region where 68% and 95% of the pseudoexperiment 99% C.L. observations lie; the dashed white line corresponds to the median. Other muon-neutrino disappearance measurements at 99% C.L. are shown in black [25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 123, 124]; where results were not available at 99% C.L., methods of Ref. [11] were applied using public data releases. Finally, the star marks the analysis best-fit point location.

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    • Figure 5
      Figure 5

      Bayesian analysis result. The logarithm of the Bayes factor [125] relative to the null hypothesis (color scale). Red indicates hypotheses preferred over the null hypothesis, while the blue indicates the null is preferred. Solid lines delineate likelihood ratios of 1 in 10 for a priori equally likely hypotheses. The best-model location is shown at the white star with a log10 (Bayes factor) minimum of −1.03.

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