Heavy-neutrino decays at neutrino telescopes
- CAFPE and Departamento de Fisica Teorica y del Cosmos, Universidad de Granada, 18071 Granada (Spain)
It has been recently proposed that a sterile neutrino {nu}{sub h} of mass m{sub h}=40-80 MeV, mixing |U{sub {mu}h}|{sup 2{approx_equal}}10{sup -3}-10{sup -2}, lifetime {tau}{sub h{<=}}10{sup -9} s, and a dominant decay mode {nu}{sub h{yields}{nu}{gamma}} could be the origin of the experimental anomalies observed at LSND and MiniBooNE. Such a particle would be abundant inside air showers, as it can be produced in kaon decays. We use the Z-moment method to evaluate its atmospheric flux and the frequency of its decays inside neutrino telescopes. We show that {nu}{sub h} would imply around 10{sup 4} contained showers of energy between 0.1 and 100 TeV per year inside a 0.03 km{sup 3} telescope like ANTARES or the DeepCore in IceCube, while the standard background is 100 times smaller. Therefore, although it may be challenging from an experimental point of view, a search there could confirm this heavy-neutrino possibility.
- OSTI ID:
- 21541563
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 83, Issue 9; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.83.091301; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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