Searching for eV-scale sterile neutrinos with eight years of atmospheric neutrinos at the IceCube Neutrino Telescope
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
We report in detail on searches for eV-scale sterile neutrinos, in the context of a 3+1 model, using eight years of data from the IceCube Neutrino Telescope. By analyzing the reconstructed energies and zenith angles of 305,735 atmospheric νμ and ¯νμ events we construct confidence intervals in two analysis spaces: sin2(2θ$_{24}$) vs Δm2¦41 under the conservative assumption θ$_{34}$=0; and sin$^{2}$ (2θ$_{24}$) vs sin$^{2}$ (2θ$_{34}$) given sufficiently large Δm2¦41 that fast oscillation features are unresolvable. Detailed discussions of the event selection, systematic uncertainties, and fitting procedures are presented. No strong evidence for sterile neutrinos is found, and the best-fit likelihood is consistent with the no sterile neutrino hypothesis with a p value of 8% in the first analysis space and 19% in the second.