Interpretation of NO$\nu$A and T2K data in the presence of a light sterile neutrino

Abstract

We study in detail the impact of a light sterile neutrino in the interpretation of the latest data of the long baseline experiments NO$\nu$A and T2K, assessing the robustness/fragility of the estimates of the standard 3-flavor parameters with respect to the perturbations induced in the 3+1 scheme. We find that all the basic features of the 3-flavor analysis, including the weak indication ($\sim$1.4$\sigma$) in favor of the inverted neutrino mass ordering, the preference for values of the CP-phase ${\delta }_{13}\sim 1.2\pi$, and the substantial degeneracy of the two octants of ${\theta }_{23}$, all remain basically unaltered in the 4-flavor scheme. Our analysis also demonstrates that it is possible to attain some constraints on the new CP-phase ${\delta }_{14}$. Finally, we point out that, differently from non-standard neutrino interactions, light sterile neutrinos are not capable to alleviate the tension recently emerged between NO$\nu$A and T2K in the appearance channel.

Comments: 9 pages; 4 figures; updated with data presented at Neutrino 2020