Constraints on neutrino decay lifetime using long-baseline charged and neutral current data

Abstract

We investigate the status of a scenario involving oscillations and decay for charged and neutral current data from the MINOS and T2K experiments. We first present an analysis of charged current neutrino and anti-neutrino data from MINOS in the framework of oscillation with decay and obtain a best fit for non-zero decay parameter ${\alpha }_3$. The MINOS charged and neutral current data analysis results in the best fit for $|\Delta m_{32}^2|=2.34\times 10^{-3}$~eV${}^2$, ${\sin }^2{\theta }_{23}=0.60$ and zero decay parameter, which corresponds to the limit for standard oscillations. Our combined MINOS and T2K analysis reports a constraint at the 90\% confidence level for the neutrino decay lifetime ${\tau }_3/m_3>2.8\times 10^{-12}$~s/eV. This is the best limit based only on accelerator produced neutrinos.