Effects of non-standard interactions in the MINOS experiment

Abstract

We investigate the effects of non-standard interactions on the determination of the neutrino oscillation parameters $Δm_{31}^2$, $θ_{23}$, and $θ_{13}$ in the MINOS experiment. We show that adding non-standard interactions to the analysis leads to an extension of the allowed parameter space to larger values of $Δm_{31}^2$ and smaller $θ_{23}$, and basically removes all predictability for $θ_{13}$. In addition, we discuss the sensitivities to the non-standard interaction parameters of the MINOS experiment alone. In particular, we examine the degeneracy between $θ_{13}$ and the non-standard interaction parameter $\eps_{eτ}$. We find that this degeneracy is responsible for the removal of the $θ_{13}$ predictability and that the possible bound on $|\eps_{eτ}|$ is competitive with direct bounds only if a more stringent external bound on $θ_{13}$ is applied.