Search for an eV-scale sterile neutrino with the first six detection units of KM3NeT/ORCA

期刊论文
出版模式：

开放获取
发表日期：

2026年2月5日

查看全文

O. Adriani,
A. Albert,
A. R. Alhebsi,
S. Alshalloudi,
M. Alshamsi,
S. Alves Garre,
F. Ameli,
M. Andre,
L. Aphecetche,
M. Ardid,
S. Ardid,
J. Aublin,
F. Badaracco,
L. Bailly-Salins,
B. Baret,
A. Bariego-Quintana,
Y. Becherini,
M. Bendahman,
F. Benfenati Gualandi,
M. Benhassi,
D. M. Benoit,
Z. Beňušová,
E. Berbee,
E. Berti,
V. Bertin,
P. Betti,
S. Biagi,
M. Boettcher,
D. Bonanno,
M. Bondì,
S. Bottai,
A. B. Bouasla,
J. Boumaaza,
M. Bouta,
M. Bouwhuis,
C. Bozza,
R. M. Bozza,
H. Brânzaş,
F. Bretaudeau,
M. Breuhaus,
R. Bruijn,
J. Brunner,
R. Bruno,
E. Buis,
R. Buompane,
I. Burriel,
J. Busto,
B. Caiffi,
D. Calvo,
A. Capone,
F. Carenini,
V. Carretero,
T. Cartraud,
P. Castaldi,
V. Cecchini,
S. Celli,
L. Cerisy,
M. Chabab,
A. Chen,
S. Cherubini,
T. Chiarusi,
W. Chung,
M. Circella,
R. Clark,
R. Cocimano,
J. A. B. Coelho,
A. Coleiro,
A. Condorelli,
R. Coniglione,
P. Coyle,
A. Creusot,
G. Cuttone,
R. Dallier,
A. De Benedittis,
G. De Wasseige,
V. Decoene,
P. Deguire,
I. Del Rosso,
L. S. Di Mauro,
I. Di Palma,
A. F. Díaz,
D. Diego-Tortosa,
C. Distefano,
A. Domi,
C. Donzaud,
D. Dornic,
E. Drakopoulou,
D. Drouhin,
J.-G. Ducoin,
P. Duverne,
R. Dvornický,
T. Eberl,
E. Eckerová,
A. Eddymaoui,
T. van Eeden,
M. Eff,
D. van Eijk,
I. El Bojaddaini,
S. El Hedri,
S. El Mentawi,
V. Ellajosyula,
A. Enzenhöfer,
M. Farino,
G. Ferrara,
M. D. Filipović,
F. Filippini,
D. Franciotti,
L. A. Fusco,
T. Gal,
J. García Méndez,
A. Garcia Soto,
C. Gatius Oliver,
N. Geißelbrecht,
E. Genton,
H. Ghaddari,
L. Gialanella,
B. K. Gibson,
E. Giorgio,
I. Goos,
P. Goswami,
S. R. Gozzini,
R. Gracia,
B. Guillon,
C. Haack,
C. Hanna,
H. van Haren,
E. Hazelton,
A. Heijboer,
L. Hennig,
J. J. Hernández-Rey,
A. Idrissi,
W. Idrissi Ibnsalih,
G. Illuminati,
R. Jaimes,
O. Janik,
D. Joly,
M. de Jong,
P. de Jong,
B. J. Jung,
P. Kalaczyński,
U. F. Katz,
J. Keegans,
V. Kikvadze,
G. Kistauri,
C. Kopper,
A. Kouchner,
Y. Y. Kovalev,
L. Krupa,
V. Kueviakoe,
V. Kulikovskiy,
R. Kvatadze,
M. Labalme,
R. Lahmann,
M. Lamoureux,
A. Langella,
G. Larosa,
C. Lastoria,
J. Lazar,
A. Lazo,
G. Lehaut,
V. Lemaître,
E. Leonora,
N. Lessing,
G. Levi,
M. Lindsey Clark,
F. Longhitano,
S. Madarapu,
F. Magnani,
L. Malerba,
F. Mamedov,
A. Manfreda,
A. Manousakis,
M. Marconi,
A. Margiotta,
A. Marinelli,
C. Markou,
L. Martin,
M. Mastrodicasa,
S. Mastroianni,
J. Mauro,
K. C. K. Mehta,
G. Miele,
P. Migliozzi,
E. Migneco,
M. L. Mitsou,
C. M. Mollo,
L. Morales-Gallegos,
N. Mori,
A. Moussa,
I. Mozun Mateo,
R. Muller,
M. R. Musone,
M. Musumeci,
S. Navas,
A. Nayerhoda,
C. A. Nicolau,
B. Nkosi,
B. Ó Fearraigh,
V. Oliviero,
A. Orlando,
E. Oukacha,
L. Pacini,
D. Paesani,
J. Palacios González,
G. Papalashvili,
P. Papini,
V. Parisi,
A. Parmar,
C. Pastore,
A. M. Păun,
G. E. Păvălaş,
S. Peña Martínez,
M. Perrin-Terrin,
V. Pestel,
M. Petropavlova,
P. Piattelli,
A. Plavin,
C. Poirè,
V. Popa,
T. Pradier,
J. Prado,
S. Pulvirenti,
C. A. Quiroz-Rangel,
N. Randazzo,
A. Ratnani,
S. Razzaque,
I. C. Rea,
D. Real,
G. Riccobene,
J. Robinson,
A. Romanov,
E. Ros,
A. Šaina,
F. Salesa Greus,
D. F. E. Samtleben,
A. Sánchez Losa,
S. Sanfilippo,
M. Sanguineti,
D. Santonocito,
P. Sapienza,
M. Scaringella,
M. Scarnera,
J. Schnabel,
J. Schumann,
J. Seneca,
P. A. Sevle Myhr,
I. Sgura,
R. Shanidze,
Chengyu Shao,
A. Sharma,
Y. Shitov,
F. Šimkovic,
A. Simonelli,
A. Sinopoulou,
B. Spisso,
M. Spurio,
O. Starodubtsev,
D. Stavropoulos,
I. Štekl,
D. Stocco,
M. Taiuti,
Y. Tayalati,
H. Thiersen,
S. Thoudam,
I. Tosta e Melo,
B. Trocmé,
V. Tsourapis,
C. Tully,
E. Tzamariudaki,
A. Ukleja,
A. Vacheret,
V. Valsecchi,
V. Van Elewyck,
G. Vannoye,
E. Vannuccini,
G. Vasileiadis,
F. Vazquez de Sola,
A. Veutro,
S. Viola,
D. Vivolo,
A. van Vliet,
E. de Wolf,
I. Lhenry-Yvon,
S. Zavatarelli,
D. Zito,
J. D. Zornoza,
J. Zúñiga

摘要

The existence of an eV-scale sterile neutrino has been proposed to explain several anomalous experimental results obtained over the course of the past 25 years. The first search for such a sterile neutrino conducted with data from KM3NeT/ORCA — a water Cherenkov neutrino telescope under construction at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea — is reported in this paper. GeV-scale atmospheric neutrino oscillations are measured by reconstructing the energy and arrival direction of up-going neutrinos that have traversed the Earth. This study is based on a data sample containing 5828 neutrino candidates collected with 6 detection units (5% of the complete detector), corresponding to an exposure of 433 kton-years. From the expected effect of an eV-scale sterile neutrino on the first ν_μ → ν_τ standard oscillation maximum, simultaneous constraints are put on the magnitude of the U_μ4 and U_τ4 mixing elements assuming $Δ m_{41}^{2} \geq 1$ $ \Delta {m}_{41}^2\ge 1 $ eV². The results are compatible with the absence of mixing between active neutrinos and a sterile state, with |U_μ4|² < 0.138 and |U_τ4|² < 0.076 at a 90% confidence level. Such constraints are compatible with the results reported by other long-baseline experiments, and indicate that with KM3NeT/ORCA it is possible to bring crucial contributions to sterile neutrino searches in the coming years.