Short distance neutrino oscillations with Borexino

¹ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi e INFN, 16146 Genova, Italy
² Physik-Department and Excellence Cluster Universe, Technische Universität München, 85748 Garching, Germany
³ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi e INFN, 20133 Milano, Italy
⁴ Chemical Engineering Department, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
⁵ Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives, Centre de Saclay, IRFU, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
⁶ Institut für Experimentalphysik, Universität Hamburg, 22761 Hamburg, Germany
⁷ INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, 67100 Assergi, Italy
⁸ Physics Department, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA
⁹ Physics Department, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
¹⁰ Gran Sasso Science Institute (INFN), 67100 L'Aquila, Italy
¹¹ Lomonosov Moscow State University Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics, 119234 Moscow, Russia
¹² St Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, 188350 Gatchina, Russia
¹³ Department of Physics, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204, USA
¹⁴ NRC Kurchatov Institute, 123182 Moscow, Russia
¹⁵ National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute), 115409 Moscow, Russia
¹⁶ Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, 141980 Dubna, Russia
¹⁷ APC, Université Paris Diderot, CNRS/IN2P3,CEA/Irfu, Observatoire de Paris, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 75205 Paris Cedex 13, France
¹⁸ Institut für Experimentalphysik, Universität Hamburg, 22761 Hamburg, Germany
¹⁹ Department of Physics, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204, USA
²⁰ Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives, Centre de Saclay, DEN/DM2S/SEMT/BCCR, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
²¹ Kiev Institute for Nuclear Research, 03680 Kiev, Ukraine
²² Kepler Center for Astro and Particle Physics, Universitt Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany
²³ Department of Physics, Technische Universität Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany
²⁴ Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
²⁵ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Hawai'i, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
²⁶ M. Smoluchowski Institute of Physics, Jagiellonian University, 30059 Krakow, Poland
²⁷ Dipartimento di Chimica, Biologia e Biotecnologie, Universita‘ degli Studi e INFN, 06123 Perugia, Italy
²⁸ Physics Department, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA
²⁹ Physics and Astronomy Department, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
³⁰ Institut für Physik, Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, 55122 Mainz, Germany

^a e-mail: alessio.caminata@ge.infn.it

Published online: 6 July 2016

Abstract

The Borexino detector has convincingly shown its outstanding performances in the low energy, sub-MeV regime through its unprecedented accomplishments in the solar and geo-neutrinos detection. These performances make it the ideal tool to accomplish a state-of-the-art experiment able to test unambiguously the long-standing issue of the existence of a sterile neutrino, as suggested by the several anomalous results accumulated over the past two decades, i.e. the outputs of the LSND and Miniboone experiments, the results of the source calibration of the two Gallium solar neutrino experiments, and the recently hinted reactor anomaly. The SOX project will exploit two sources, based on Chromium and Cerium, respectively, which deployed under the experiment, in a location foreseen on purpose at the time of the construction of the detector, will emit two intense beams of neutrinos (Cr) and anti-neutrinos (Ce). Interacting in the active volume of the liquid scintillator, each beam would create an unmistakable spatial wave pattern in case of oscillation of the ν_e (or ν̅_e) into the sterile state: such a pattern would be the smoking gun proving the existence of the new sterile member of the neutrino family. Otherwise, its absence will allow setting a very stringent limit on its existence.