Context (archaeology)

Neutrino oscillation

Biology

Solar neutrino problem

Particle physics

Astrophysics

Archaeology

Neutrino

Paleontology

Physics

Measurements of neutrino speed

Optics

Astronomy

Zenith

Neutrino astronomy

Sterile neutrino

Solar neutrino

History

Physical review. D/Physical review. D.

We report in detail on searches for eV-scale sterile neutrinos, in the context of a 3+1 model, using eight years of data from the IceCube neutrino telescope. By analyzing the reconstructed energies and zenith angles of 305,735 atmospheric $\nu_\mu$ and $\bar{\nu}_\mu$ events we construct confidence intervals in two analysis spaces: $\sin^2 (2\theta_{24})$ vs. $\Delta m^2_{41}$ under the conservative assumption $\theta_{34}=0$; and $\sin^2(2\theta_{24})$ vs. $\sin^2 (2\theta_{34})$ given sufficiently large $\Delta m^2_{41}$ that fast oscillation features are unresolvable. Detailed discussions of the event selection, systematic uncertainties, and fitting procedures are presented. No strong evidence for sterile neutrinos is found, and the best-fit likelihood is consistent with the no sterile neutrino hypothesis with a p-value of 8\% in the first analysis space and 19\% in the second.

Searching for eV-scale sterile neutrinos with eight years of atmospheric neutrinos at the IceCube Neutrino Telescope