Constraining axial non-standard neutrino interactions with MINOS and MINOS+

Abstract

We show that the neutral current data of the MINOS and MINOS+ experiments can provide information on the axial neutral current non-standard interactions of neutrinos with the $u$ and $d$ quarks; {\it i.e.,} on ${ϵ}_{\alpha \beta }^{Aq}$. We derive bounds on the $ee$, $e\tau$ and $\tau \tau$ components of these couplings and show that the MINOS(+) bounds on ${ϵ}_{e\tau }^{Aq}$ and ${ϵ}_{\tau \tau }^{Aq}$ are currently the world leading ones. The bound on the isospin singlet case, ${ϵ}_{\tau \tau }^{Au}={ϵ}_{\tau \tau }^{Ad}$ is of particular interest because while this isospin singlet NSI is theoretically motivated, it was practically unconstrained before these results.

Comments: 25 pages, 10 figures