Eur. Phys. J. C (2018) 78: 807
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-018-6282-2

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics

IceCube bounds on sterile neutrinos above 10 eV

¹ Instituto de Física Teórica UAM/CSIC, Calle Nicolás Cabrera 13-15, Cantoblanco, 28049, Madrid, Spain
² Department of Physics, School of Engineering Sciences, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, AlbaNova University Center, 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden
³ Departamento de Física Teórica, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, 28049, Madrid, Spain
⁴ SISSA/INFN-Sezione di Trieste, Via Bonomea 265, 34136, Trieste, Italy
⁵ Institut de Ciències del Cosmos, Universitat de Barcelona, Diagonal 647, 08028, Barcelona, Spain

^* e-mail: josu.hernandez@ts.infn.it

Received: 13 July 2018
Accepted: 22 September 2018
Published online: 4 October 2018

Abstract

We study the capabilities of IceCube to search for sterile neutrinos with masses above 10 eV by analyzing its disappearance atmospheric neutrino sample. We find that IceCube is not only sensitive to the mixing of sterile neutrinos to muon neutrinos, but also to the more elusive mixing with tau neutrinos through matter effects. The currently released 1-year data shows a mild preference, between 0.75 and 3 depending on the binning and flux adopted, for non-zero sterile mixing. This hint overlaps with the favored region for the sterile neutrino interpretation of the ANITA upward shower although the null results from CHORUS and NOMAD on to oscillations in vacuum exclude this interpretation, while through a different channel and using a different energy range. At the 99% C.L. an upper bound is obtained that improves over the present Super-Kamiokande and DeepCore constraints in some parts of the parameter space. We also investigate the physics reach of the roughly 8 years of data that is already on tape as well as a forecast of 20 years data to probe the present hint or improve upon current constraints.