eV-Scale Sterile Neutrino Search Using Eight Years of Atmospheric Muon Neutrino Data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
M. G. Aartsen, R. Abbasi, M. Ackermann, J. Adams, J. A. Aguilar, M. Ahlers, M. Ahrens, Cyril Martin Alispach, N. M. Amin, K. Andeen, T. Anderson, I. Ansseau, G. Anton, C. Argüelles, J. Auffenberg, Spencer Axani, H. Bagherpour, X. Bai, Aswathi Balagopal, Anastasia Maria Barbano, S. W. Barwick, Benjamin Bastian, Vedant Basu, V. Baum, S. Baur, R. Bay, J. J. Beatty, K.-H. Becker, J. Becker Tjus, S. BenZvi, D. Berley, E. Bernardini, D. Besson, G. Binder, D. Bindig, E. Blaufuss, Summer Blot, C. Böhm, S. Böser, O. Botner, J. Böttcher, Etienne Bourbeau, J. Bourbeau, Federica Bradascio, J. Braun, S. Bron, Jannes Brostean-Kaiser, A. Burgman, J. Büscher, Raffaela Busse, T. Carver, C. Chen, E. Cheung, D. Chirkin, S. Choi, Brian Clark, K. Clark, Lew Classen, Alan Coleman, G. H. Collin, J. M. Conrad, Paul Coppin, Pablo Correa, D. F. Cowen, R. Cross, Pranav Dave, C. De Clercq, James DeLaunay, H.-P. Dembinski, Kunal Deoskar, S. De Ridder, Abhishek Desai, P. Desiati, K. D. de Vries, G. de Wasseige, M. de With, T. DeYoung, Sukeerthi Dharani, A. Diaz, J. C. Díaz–Vélez, Hrvoje Dujmović, M. Dunkman, M. A. DuVernois, Emily Dvorak, Thomas Ehrhardt, P. Eller, R. Engel, P. A. Evenson, S. Fahey, A. R. Fazely, Anatoli Fedynitch, J. Felde, Aaron Fienberg, K. Filimonov, C. Finley, D. B. Fox, A. Franckowiak, Edward Friedman, Alexander Fritz, T. K. Gaisser
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 eV^{2}. The best-fit point is found to be at sin^{2}(2θ_{24})=0.10 and Δm_{41}^{2}=4.5 eV^{2}, which is consistent with the no sterile neutrino hypothesis with a p value of 8.0%.