Dark photon distortions of NO$\nu$A and T2K neutrino oscillations

Abstract

Dark photons coupling to $L_{\mu }-L_{\tau }$ lepton number difference are a highly studied light dark matter candidate, with potential to be discovered through their impact on terrestrial neutrino oscillation experiments. We re-examine this in the light of claimed tensions between the NO$\nu$A and T2K long baseline experiments, also taking into account data from the MINOS experiment. We obtain leading limits on the $L_{\mu }-L_{\tau }$ gauge coupling $g^{\prime }$ versus dark photon mass $m_{A^{\prime }}$, and find no statistically significant alleviation of the tension from inclusion of the new physics effect.

Comments: 7 pages, 3 figure; v3: Added figures 1 and 3