Study of matter effects in the presence of sterile neutrino using OMSD approximation

Abstract

We discuss the transition and survival probabilities in $3+1$ neutrino flavor mixing scenario in presence of matter effects. We adopt the well-known OMSD(One Mass Scale Dominance) approximation to carry out our analysis. After that we perform series expansion about $\sin \theta_{13}$ term upto second order. We find that our results are consistent with the already existing $\alpha - \sin \theta_{13}$ approximated relations in the limit of vanishing $\alpha$ and phases involving sterile neutrinos. We also figure out that survival transition probability becomes independent of the fundamental and sterile CP phases under our formalism. Hence, it provides us a new way to look at only matter effects contribution to oscillation probability. Also, the transition probability at the same time gives an independent study of CP-violation arising from the sterile phases, in the vicinity of fundamental CP violation phase. We provide the relation for the atmospheric probability in the presence of matter by performing the series expansion upto linear order about parameter $A (= 2EV)$, with V being the effective matter potential under OMSD approximation.