Sterile neutrino oscillometry with Jinping

Abstract

The existence of sterile neutrino is an open question in neutrino physics up to now. The method of neutrino oscillometry provides a powerful tool to test the common 3 + 1 sterile neutrino hypothesis, i.e. three active flavors and one sterile flavor. There are several antineutrino sources which can be used for this method. One of them is the well known isotope chain of $$^{144}\mathrm{Ce}$$144Ce–$$^{144}{\mathrm{Pr}}$$144Pr with initial activity around 50–100 kCi. It has compact size and might be installed either outside or inside the detector. Another one is the short-lived isotope $$^8{\mathrm{Li}}$$8Li, which can be produced in nuclear reaction of a proton beam hitting a beryllium target. The lithium source has only the out-of-detector option due to its large size. The proposed Jinping water-based liquid scintillator detector will be used as a detection volume. Above experimental setups will allow us to cover the current best fit values of oscillation parameters with 90% C.L. At the same time, it is sensitive to the region of the Neutrino-4 result.

Probing neutrino magnetic moment at the Jinping neutrino experiment

“…This formula can also be used for the light sterile neutrino study such as ref. [53]. In our case, there is almost no neutrino oscillation.…”

“…In the end, we present the current several best results of νMM and the sensitivities of both solar neutrino and artificial neutrino sources at Jinping in figure 9. The left segment of figure 9 shows µ eff ν from this work compared to terrestrial experiments: Borexino [25], XENON1T [26] and PandaX-II [27], also with the astrophysical observations: cooling of globular clusters [30], white dwarfs [31] and red clump stars [53]. The right segment presents the electronic neutrino magnetic moment from this work with 51 Cr source compared to Gemma experiment [24].…”

Probing neutrino magnetic moment at the Jinping neutrino experiment

“…This formula can also be used for the light sterile neutrino study such as ref. [48]. In our case, there is almost no neutrino oscillation.…”

White Paper on Light Sterile Neutrino Searches and Related Phenomenology

“…About 48.5% of the emitted antineutrinos are at energies above the detection threshold of the inverse beta decay (IBD) reaction (the value of the threshold is 1.8 MeV) and thus can be used for the measurements. Based on previous calculations, the maximal source activity can reach 100 kCi [560].…”

“…Another neutrino artificial source proposed to study the possible oscillation of active to sterile neutrinos is the isotope 144 Ce − 144 Pr. In this case, the idea is to use such a source for the future solar neutrino experiment Jinping [560].…”