English

NOvA's Current and Future Sterile Neutrino Searches

High Energy Physics - Experiment 2026-02-13 v1

Abstract

The NOvA experiment's most recent search for eV-scale sterile neutrinos under a 3+1 model simultaneously analyses muon neutrino and neutral current datasets from the NuMI beam at its Near (\sim\qty{1}{km} baseline) and Far (\qty{810}{km} baseline) detectors to look for oscillations consistent with a sterile neutrino. The analysis is systematically limited in the region of parameter space where Δm4121 eV2\Delta m^2_{41} \gtrsim 1~\mathrm{eV}^2. This region of parameter space is preferred by sterile neutrino interpretations of current experimental anomalies and so improving sensitivity here is high-priority. These proceedings present our current search strategy, and discusses future plans to include data from a second beamline, the Booster Neutrino Beam, to improve our sensitivity in systematics-dominated regions of parameter space.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.11345,
  title  = {NOvA's Current and Future Sterile Neutrino Searches},
  author = {Adam Lister},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.11345},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

10 pages, 7 figures. Presented at NuPhys 2026 conference (C26-01-07)