Search for nonstandard neutrino interactions with IceCube DeepCore
Date
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
As atmospheric neutrinos propagate through the Earth, vacuumlike oscillations are modified by Standard Model neutral- and charged-current interactions with electrons. Theories beyond the Standard Model introduce heavy, TeV-scale bosons that can produce nonstandard neutrino interactions. These additional interactions may modify the Standard Model matter effect producing a measurable deviation from the prediction for atmospheric neutrino oscillations. The result described in this paper constrains nonstandard interaction parameters, building upon a previous analysis of atmospheric muon-neutrino disappearance with three years of IceCube DeepCore data. The best fit for the muon to tau flavor changing term is ε_μτ = -0.0005, with a 90% C.L. allowed range of -0.0067 < ε_μτ < 0.0081. This result is more restrictive than recent limits from other experiments for ε_μτ. Furthermore, our result is complementary to a recent constraint on ε_μτ using another publicly available IceCube high-energy event selection. Together, they constitute the world's best limits on nonstandard interactions in the μ-τ sector.