Direct comparison of sterile neutrino constraints from cosmological data, disappearance data and appearance data in a model

Matthew Adams; Fedor Bezrukov; Jack  Elvin-Poole; Justin J. Evans; Pawel Guzowski; Brían Ó Fearraigh; Stefan Söldner-Rembold

doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-8197-y

2024 Impact factor 4.8

Particles and Fields

Open Access

Eur. Phys. J. C (2020) 80: 758
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-8197-y

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Direct comparison of sterile neutrino constraints from cosmological data, $\nu _{e}$ disappearance data and $\nu _{\mu } \rightarrow \nu _{e}$ appearance data in a model

Matthew Adams¹, Fedor Bezrukov¹, Jack Elvin-Poole², Justin J. Evans¹^*, Pawel Guzowski¹, Brían Ó Fearraigh³^,4 and Stefan Söldner-Rembold¹

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, United Kingdom
² Centre for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, and Department of Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA
³ Nikhef, National Institute for Subatomic Physics, PO Box 41882, Amsterdam, 1009 DB, The Netherlands
⁴ Institute of Physics/IHEF, University of Amsterdam, PO Box 94216, Amsterdam, 1090 GE, The Netherlands

^* e-mail: justin.evans@manchester.ac.uk

Received: 22 February 2020
Accepted: 3 July 2020
Published online: 19 August 2020

Abstract

We present a quantitative, direct comparison of constraints on sterile neutrinos derived from neutrino oscillation experiments and from Planck data, interpreted assuming standard cosmological evolution. We extend a $$1+1$$ model, which is used to compare exclusion contours at the 95% Cl derived from Planck data to those from $\nu _{e}$ -disappearance measurements, to a $$3+1$$ model. This allows us to compare the Planck constraints with those obtained through $\nu _{\mu }\rightarrow \nu _{e}$ appearance searches, which are sensitive to more than one active-sterile mixing angle. We find that the cosmological data fully exclude the allowed regions published by the LSND, MiniBooNE and Neutrino-4 collaborations, and those from the gallium and rector anomalies, at the 95% Cl. Compared to the exclusion region from the Daya Bay $\nu _{e}$ -disappearance search, the Planck data are more strongly excluding above $|\Delta m^{2}_{41}|\approx 0.1\,\mathrm {eV}^{2}$ and $m_\mathrm {eff}^\mathrm {sterile}\approx 0.2\,\mathrm {eV}$ , with the Daya Bay exclusion being stronger below these values. Compared to the combined Daya Bay/Bugey/MINOS exclusion region on $\nu _{\mu }\rightarrow \nu _{e}$ appearance, the Planck data is more strongly excluding above $\Delta m^{2}_{41}\approx 5\times 10^{-2}\,\mathrm {eV}^{2}$ , with the exclusion strengths of the Planck data and the Daya Bay/Bugey/MINOS combination becoming comparable below this value.