Constraints on neutrino lifetime from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • SNO Collaboration - (Author)
  • Chair of Nuclear Physics
  • Laurentian University
  • Queen's University Kingston
  • University of Texas at Austin
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • Laboratório de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas
  • Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
  • Carleton University
  • University of Alberta
  • University of Guelph
  • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • University of Oxford
  • University of California at Berkeley
  • Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Laboratory (SNOLAB)
  • Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
  • University of Washington
  • Heidelberg University 
  • Los Alamos National Laboratory
  • United States Agency for International Development
  • SNOLAB
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
  • Louisiana State University
  • Brookhaven National Laboratory
  • Sanford Underground Research Laboratory
  • University of British Columbia
  • University of Winnipeg

Abstract

The long baseline between Earth and the Sun makes solar neutrinos an excellent test beam for exploring possible neutrino decay. The signature of such decay would be an energy-dependent distortion of the traditional survival probability which can be fit for using well-developed and high-precision analysis methods. Here a model including neutrino decay is fit to all three phases of B8 solar neutrino data taken by the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO). This fit constrains the lifetime of neutrino mass state ν2 to be >8.08×10-5 s/eV at 90% confidence. An analysis combining this SNO result with those from other solar neutrino experiments results in a combined limit for the lifetime of mass state ν2 of >1.92×10-3 s/eV at 90% confidence.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number032013
JournalPhysical review d
Volume99
Issue number3
Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2019
Peer-reviewedYes

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas