NOvA's Current and Future Sterile Neutrino Searches

Conference · Wed Feb 11 00:00:00 EST 2026 · No journal information

OSTI ID:3018268

Lister, Adam ^[1]

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1. Wisconsin U., Madison; Virginia Tech.; King's Coll. London

The NOvA experiment's most recent search for eV-scale sterile neutrinos under a 3+1 model simultaneously analyses muon neutrino and neutral current datasets from the NuMI beam at its Near ($$\sim$$\qty1{km} baseline) and Far (\qty{810}{km} baseline) detectors to look for oscillations consistent with a sterile neutrino. The analysis is systematically limited in the region of parameter space where $$Δm^2_{41} \gtrsim 1~\mathrm{eV}^2$$. This region of parameter space is preferred by sterile neutrino interpretations of current experimental anomalies and so improving sensitivity here is high-priority. These proceedings present our current search strategy, and discusses future plans to include data from a second beamline, the Booster Neutrino Beam, to improve our sensitivity in systematics-dominated regions of parameter space.

• Research Organization: Virginia Tech.; King's Coll. London; Wisconsin U., Madison
• Sponsoring Organization: US Department of Energy
• DOE Contract Number: 89243024CSC000002
• OSTI ID: 3018268
• Report Number(s): FERMILAB-CONF-26-0079-PPD; oai:inspirehep.net:3118926; arXiv:2602.11345
• Resource Type: Conference paper
• Conference Information: Journal Name: No journal information
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English