# Four-neutrino spectrum from oscillation data

## Abstract

It is shown that the Super-Kamiokande atmospheric up–down asymmetry, together with the results of all other neutrino oscillation experiments, allows to constraint the possible spectra of four massive neutrinos. The two schemes with two pairs of neutrinos with close masses separated by a gap of about 1 eV are favored by the data.

preprint:     UWThPh-1999-24  DFTT 22/99  hep-ph/9904316     

The recent observation of an up–down asymmetry of high-energy $`\mu `$-like events generated by atmospheric neutrinos in the Super-Kamiokande experiment represents a convincing model-independent evidence in favor of neutrino oscillations. Indications in favor of disappearance of atmospheric $`\nu _\mu `$’s have been obtained also in the Kamiokande and IMB experiments and in the recent Soudan 2 and MACRO experiments. Other indications in favor of neutrino oscillations have been obtained in solar neutrino experiments (Homestake, Kamiokande, GALLEX, SAGE, Super-Kamiokande) and in the LSND experiment. The flux of electron neutrinos measured in all five solar neutrino experiments is substantially smaller than the one predicted by the Standard Solar Model and a comparison of the data of different experiments indicate an energy dependence of the solar $`\nu _e`$ suppression, which represents a rather convincing evidence in favor of neutrino oscillations. The accelerator LSND experiment is the only one that claims the observation of neutrino oscillations in appearance channels, specifically $`\overline{\nu }_\mu \overline{\nu }_e`$ and $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$.

The probabilities of neutrino oscillations depend on the elements of the neutrino mixing matrix $`U`$, that connects the flavor neutrino fields $`\nu _{\alpha L}`$ to the massive neutrino fields $`\nu _{kL}`$ through the relation $`\nu _{\alpha L}=_kU_{\alpha k}\nu _{kL}`$, and on the phases $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{kj}^2L/E`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{kj}^2m_k^2m_j^2`$ ($`m_k`$ is the mass of the neutrino field $`\nu _k`$), $`L`$ is the source-detector distance and $`E`$ is the neutrino energy. If $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{kj}^2L/E1`$ neutrino flavor transitions cannot be observed and if $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{kj}^2L/E1`$ only the averaged transition probability can be measured. Since a variation of the transition probability as a function of neutrino energy has been observed in all the experiments mentioned above and the range of $`L/E`$ probed by each type of experiment is different ($`L/E10^{10}\mathrm{eV}^2`$ for solar neutrino experiments, $`L/E10^210^3\mathrm{eV}^2`$ for atmospheric neutrino experiments and $`L/E1\mathrm{eV}^2`$ for the LSND experiment), it is clear that in order to explain all the observations with neutrino oscillations at least three $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$’s with different scales are needed: $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{sun}}^210^{10}\mathrm{eV}^2`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{atm}}^210^310^2\mathrm{eV}^2`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{LSND}}^21\mathrm{eV}^2`$ (if the MSW effect is responsible of solar neutrino transitions, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{sun}}^2`$ must be smaller than about $`10^4\mathrm{eV}^2`$ in order to have a resonance in the interior of the sun and is still at least one order of magnitude smaller than $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2`$). This means that at least four light massive neutrinos must exist in nature. Here we consider the minimal possibility of four neutrinos, which implies that the three flavor neutrinos $`\nu _e`$, $`\nu _\mu `$, $`\nu _\tau `$ are accompanied by a sterile neutrino $`\nu _s`$ that does not take part in standard weak interactions.

The six types of four-neutrino mass spectra that can accommodate the hierarchy $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{sun}}^2\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{LSND}}^2`$ are shown in Fig. 1. In all these mass spectra there are two groups of close masses separated by the “LSND gap” of the order of 1 eV. In each scheme the smallest mass-squared difference corresponds to $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{sun}}^2`$ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2`$ in schemes I and B, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2`$ in schemes II and IV, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{43}^2`$ in schemes III and A), the intermediate one to $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2`$ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{31}^2`$ in schemes I and II, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{42}^2`$ in schemes III and IV, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2`$ in scheme A, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{43}^2`$ in scheme B) and the largest mass squared difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{41}^2=\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{LSND}}^2`$ is relevant for the oscillations observed in the LSND experiment.

It has been shown that the schemes I–IV are disfavored by the results of short-baseline accelerator and reactor disappearance neutrino oscillation experiments for all values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{41}^2`$ in the LSND-allowed range 0.2 – 2 eV<sup>2</sup>, with the possible exception of the small interval from 0.2 to 0.3 eV<sup>2</sup> where there are no data from $`\nu _\mu `$ short-baseline disappearance experiments. Here we will show that this gap is closed by the inclusion in the analysis of the asymmetry of $`\mu `$-like high-energy events

$$𝒜=(UD)/(U+D)=0.311\pm 0.043\pm 0.01$$
(1)   
measured in the Super-Kamiokande experiment. Here $`U`$ and $`D`$ are the number of events in the zenith angle intervals $`1<\mathrm{cos}\theta <0.2`$ and $`0.2<\mathrm{cos}\theta <1`$, respectively.

In the following we will consider only the scheme I with a mass hierarchy, but the results apply also to the schemes II, III and IV. Let us remark that in principle one could check which scheme is allowed by doing a combined fit of all data. However, at the moment it is not possible to perform such a fit because of the enormous complications due to the presence of many parameters (six mixing angles, etc.) and to the difficulties involved in a combined fit of the data of different experiments, which are usually analyzed by the experimental collaborations using different methods. Hence, we think that it is quite remarkable that one can exclude the schemes I–IV with the following relatively simple procedure.

The exclusion plots obtained in short-baseline $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ and $`\nu _\mu `$ disappearance experiments imply that $`|U_{\alpha 4}|^2a_\alpha ^0\text{or}|U_{\alpha 4}|^21a_\alpha ^0`$ for $`\alpha =e,\mu `$, with $`a_e^04\times 10^2`$ for $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{41}^20.1\mathrm{eV}^2`$ and $`a_\mu ^00.2`$ for $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{41}^20.4\mathrm{eV}^2`$. However, since the survival probability of solar $`\nu _e`$’s is bounded by $`P_{\nu _e\nu _e}^{\mathrm{sun}}|U_{e4}|^4`$, only the range

$$|U_{e4}|^2a_e^0$$
(2)   
is acceptable. In a similar way, since the survival probability of atmospheric $`\nu _\mu `$’s and $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$’s (all the following inequalities are valid both for neutrinos and antineutrinos) is bounded by $`P_{\nu _\mu \nu _\mu }^{\mathrm{atm}}|U_{\mu 4}|^4`$, it is clear that large values of $`|U_{\mu 4}|^2`$ are incompatible with the observed asymmetry (1).

Let us derive the upper bound for $`|U_{\mu 4}|^2`$ that follows from the asymmetry (1). Because of the small value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2=\mathrm{\Delta }m_{31}^2`$, downward-going neutrinos do not oscillate with the atmospheric mass-squared difference and the survival probability of downward-going neutrinos given by

$$P_{\nu _\alpha \nu _\alpha }^D=|U_{\alpha 4}|^4+\left(1|U_{\alpha 4}|^2\right)^2.$$
(3)   
The conservation of probability and Eq.(2) allow to deduce the upper bound

$$P_{\nu _e\nu _\mu }^D1P_{\nu _e\nu _e}^D=2|U_{e4}|^2\left(1|U_{e4}|^2\right)2a_e^0(1a_e^0).$$
(4)   
From Eqs.(3) and (4) we obtain the upper bound

$$DN_\mu \left[|U_{\mu 4}|^4+\left(1|U_{\mu 4}|^2\right)^2\right]+2N_ea_e^0(1a_e^0),$$
(5)   
where $`N_\mu `$ and $`N_e`$ are number of muon (electron) neutrinos and antineutrinos produced in the atmosphere. On the other hand, taking into account only the part of $`D`$ which is determined by the survival probability of $`\nu _\mu `$’s, we obtain the lower bound

$$DN_\mu \left[|U_{\mu 4}|^4+\left(1|U_{\mu 4}|^2\right)^2\right].$$
(6)   
Furthermore, using the lower bound $`P_{\nu _\mu \nu _\mu }^{\mathrm{atm}}|U_{\mu 4}|^4`$, for upward-going neutrinos we have

$$UN_\mu |U_{\mu 4}|^4.$$
(7)   
With the inequalities (5), (6) and (7), for the asymmetry (1) we obtain

$$𝒜\frac{\left(1|U_{\mu 4}|^2\right)^2+2a_e^0(1a_e^0)/r}{\left(1|U_{\mu 4}|^2\right)^2+2|U_{\mu 4}|^4},$$
(8)   
where $`rN_\mu /N_e2.8`$. Solving the inequality (8) for $`|U_{\mu 4}|^2`$, we finally obtain the upper bound

$$|U_{\mu 4}|^2\frac{1+𝒜\sqrt{2\left[𝒜(1+𝒜)+(1+3𝒜)a_e^0(1a_e^0)/r\right]}}{1+3𝒜}a_\mu ^{\mathrm{SK}}.$$
(9)   
Since the measured value (1) of $`𝒜`$ implies that $`𝒜0.254`$ at 90% CL, from the inequality (8) we obtain the upper bound depicted by the horizontal line in Fig. 2 (the vertically hatched area is excluded).

In Fig. 2 we have also shown the bound $`|U_{\mu 4}|^2a_\mu ^0`$ or $`|U_{\mu 4}|^21a_\mu ^0`$ obtained from the exclusion plot of the short-baseline CDHS $`\nu _\mu `$ disappearance experiment, which exclude the shadowed region.

The results of the LSND experiment imply a lower bound $`A_{\mu ;e}^{\mathrm{min}}`$ for the amplitude $`A_{\mu ;e}=4|U_{e4}|^2|U_{\mu 4}|^2`$ of $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ oscillations, from which we obtain the constraint

$$|U_{\mu 4}|^2A_{\mu ;e}^{\mathrm{min}}/4a_e^0.$$
(10)   
This bound is represented by the curve in Fig. 2 labelled LSND + Bugey (the diagonally hatched area is excluded).

From Fig. 2 one can see that, in the framework of scheme I, there is no range of $`|U_{\mu 4}|^2`$ that is compatible with all the experimental data. Hence, the scheme with four neutrinos and a mass hierarchy is strongly disfavored.

The incompatibility of the experimental results with the mass spectrum I is shown also in Fig. 3, where we have plotted in the $`A_{\mu ;e}`$$`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{41}^2`$ plane the upper bound $`A_{\mu ;e}4a_e^0a_\mu ^0`$ for $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{41}^2>0.26\mathrm{eV}^2`$ and $`A_{\mu ;e}4a_e^0a_\mu ^{\mathrm{SK}}`$ for $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{41}^2<0.26\mathrm{eV}^2`$ (solid line, the region on the right is excluded). One can see that this constraint is incompatible with the LSND-allowed region (shadowed area).

The procedure presented above for the scheme I applies also to the schemes II, III and IV, in which there is a group of three close neutrino masses separated from the fourth mass by the LSND gap. Hence, we conclude that these schemes are disfavored. Only the four-neutrino schemes A and B in Fig. 1 are compatible with the results of all neutrino oscillation experiments.