Model-Independent Constraints on Non-Unitary Neutrino Mixing from High-Precision Long-Baseline Experiments

Abstract

Our knowledge on the active 3$\nu$ mixing angles (${\theta }_{12}$, ${\theta }_{13}$, and ${\theta }_{23}$) and the CP phase ${\delta }_{\mathrm{CP}}$ is becoming accurate day-by-day enabling us to test the unitarity of the leptonic mixing matrix with utmost precision. Future high-precision long-baseline experiments are going to play an important role in this direction. In this work, we study the impact of possible non-unitary neutrino mixing (NUNM) in the context of next-generation long-baseline experiments DUNE and T2HKK/JD+KD having one detector in Japan (T2HK/JD) and a second detector in Korea (KD). We estimate the sensitivities of these setups to place direct, model-independent, and competitive constraints on various NUNM parameters. We demonstrate the possible correlations between the NUNM parameters, ${\theta }_{23}$, and ${\delta }_{\mathrm{CP}}$. Our numerical results obtained using only far detector data and supported by simple approximate analytical expressions of the oscillation probabilities in matter, reveal that JD+KD has better sensitivities for $|{\alpha }_{21}|$ and ${\alpha }_{22}$ as compared to DUNE, due to its larger statistics in the appearance channel and less systematic uncertainties in the disappearance channel, respectively. For $|{\alpha }_{31}|$, $|{\alpha }_{32}|$, and ${\alpha }_{33}$, DUNE gives better constraints as compared to JD+KD, due to its larger matter effect and wider neutrino energy spectrum. For ${\alpha }_{11}$, both DUNE and JD+KD give similar bounds. We also show how much the bounds on the NUNM parameters can be improved by combining the prospective data from DUNE and JD+KD setups. We find that due to zero-distance effects, the near detectors alone can also constrain ${\alpha }_{11}$, $|{\alpha }_{21}|$, and ${\alpha }_{22}$ in both these setups. Finally, we observe that the ${\nu }_{\tau }$ appearance sample in DUNE can improve the constraints on $|{\alpha }_{32}|$ and ${\alpha }_{33}$.

Comments: 39 pages, 10 figures, 11 tables, and 2 appendices. Published in JHEP