Effect of interaction with neutrons in matter on flavor conversion of super-light sterile neutrino with active neutrino

Abstract

A super-light sterile neutrino was proposed to explain the absence of the expected upturn of the survival probability of low energy solar boron neutrinos. This is because this super-light sterile neutrino can oscillate efficiently with electron neutrino through a MSW resonance happened in Sun. One may naturally expect that a similar resonance should happen for neutrinos propagating in Earth matter. We study the flavor conversion of this super-light sterile neutrino with active neutrinos in Earth matter. We find that the scenario of the super-light sterile neutrino can easily pass through possible constraints from experiments which can test the Earth matter effect in oscillation of neutrinos. Interestinlgy, we find that this is because the naively expected resonant conversion disappears or is significantly suppressed due to the presence of a potential $V_n$ which arises from neutral current interaction of neutrino with neutrons in matter. In contrast, the neutron number density in the Sun is negligible and the effect of $V_n$ is effectively switched off. This enables the MSW resonance in Sun needed in oscillation of the super-light sterile neutrino with solar electron neutrinos. It's interesting to note that it is the different situation in the Sun and in the Earth that makes $V_n$ effectively turned off and turned on respectively. This observation makes the scenario of the super-light sterile neutrino quite interesting.