Search for an eV-scale sterile neutrino with the first six detection units of KM3NeT/ORCA
[EN] The existence of an eV-scale sterile neutrino has been proposed to explain several anomalous experimental results obtained over the course of the past 25 years. The first search for such a sterile neutrino conducted with data from KM3NeT/ORCA - a water Cherenkov neutrino telescope under constru...
| Autores: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Formato: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2026 |
| País: | España |
| Recursos: | Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) |
| Repositorio: | RiuNet. Repositorio Institucional de la Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:dnet:riunet______::4561d2c3605be69c76a6fc187e01a749 |
| Acesso em linha: | https://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/233684 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palavra-chave: | Neutrino Detectors and Telescopes (experiments) Oscillation Beyond Standard Model |
| Resumo: | [EN] The existence of an eV-scale sterile neutrino has been proposed to explain several anomalous experimental results obtained over the course of the past 25 years. The first search for such a sterile neutrino conducted with data from KM3NeT/ORCA - a water Cherenkov neutrino telescope under construction at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea - is reported in this paper. GeV-scale atmospheric neutrino oscillations are measured by reconstructing the energy and arrival direction of up-going neutrinos that have traversed the Earth. This study is based on a data sample containing 5828 neutrino candidates collected with 6 detection units (5% of the complete detector), corresponding to an exposure of 433 kton-years. From the expected effect of an eV-scale sterile neutrino on the first nu(mu) -> nu(tau) standard oscillation maximum, simultaneous constraints are put on the magnitude of the U-mu 4 and U-tau 4 mixing elements assuming triangle m(41 )(2)>= 1 eV(2). The results are compatible with the absence of mixing between active neutrinos and a sterile state, with |U-mu 4|(2) < 0.138 and |U-tau 4|(2) < 0.076 at a 90% confidence level. Such constraints are compatible with the results reported by other long-baseline experiments, and indicate that with KM3NeT/ORCA it is possible to bring crucial contributions to sterile neutrino searches in the coming years. |
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