If heavy neutrinos with mass mνH≥2me are produced in the Sun via the decay 8B→8Be+e++νH in a side branch of the pp chain, they would undergo the observable decay into an electron, a positron and a light neutrino νH→νL+e++e-. In the present work Borexino data are used to set a bound on the existence of such decays. We constrain the mixing of a heavy neutrino with mass 1.5 MeV≤mνH≤14 MeV to be |UeH|2≤(10-3-4×10-6), respectively. These are tighter limits on the mixing parameters than obtained in previous experiments at nuclear reactors and accelerators.
New limits on heavy sterile neutrino mixing in 8B decay obtained with the Borexino detector / G. Bellini, J. Benziger, D. Bick, G. Bonfini, D. Bravo, M. Buizza Avanzini, B. Caccianiga, L. Cadonati, F. Calaprice, P. Cavalcante, A. Chavarria, A. Chepurnov, D. D’Angelo, S. Davini, A. Derbin, I. Drachnev, A. Empl, A. Etenko, K. Fomenko, D. Franco, C. Galbiati, S. Gazzana, C. Ghiano, M. Giammarchi, M. Göger-Neff, A. Goretti, L. Grandi, C. Hagner, E. Hungerford, A. Ianni, A. Ianni, V. Kobychev, D. Korablev, G. Korga, D. Kryn, M. Laubenstein, T. Lewke, E. Litvinovich, B. Loer, F. Lombardi, P. Lombardi, L. Ludhova, G. Lukyanchenko, I. Machulin, S. Manecki, W. Maneschg, G. Manuzio, Q. Meindl, E. Meroni, L. Miramonti, M. Misiaszek, P. Mosteiro, V. Muratova, L. Oberauer, M. Obolensky, F. Ortica, K. Otis, M. Pallavicini, L. Papp, L. Perasso, S. Perasso, A. Pocar, G. Ranucci, A. Razeto, A. Re, A. Romani, N. Rossi, R. Saldanha, C. Salvo, S. Schönert, H. Simgen, M. Skorokhvatov, O. Smirnov, A. Sotnikov, S. Sukhotin, Y. Suvorov, R. Tartaglia, G. Testera, D. Vignaud, R.B. Vogelaar, F. von Feilitzsch, J. Winter, M. Wojcik, A. Wright, M. Wurm, J. Xu, O. Zaimidoroga, S. Zavatarelli, G. Zuzel. - In: PHYSICAL REVIEW D, PARTICLES, FIELDS, GRAVITATION, AND COSMOLOGY. - ISSN 1550-7998. - 88:7(2013 Oct 29), pp. 072010.1-072010.7.
New limits on heavy sterile neutrino mixing in 8B decay obtained with the Borexino detector
G. Bellini;B. Caccianiga;D. D’Angelo;L. Ludhova;E. Meroni;L. Miramonti;A. Re;
2013
Abstract
If heavy neutrinos with mass mνH≥2me are produced in the Sun via the decay 8B→8Be+e++νH in a side branch of the pp chain, they would undergo the observable decay into an electron, a positron and a light neutrino νH→νL+e++e-. In the present work Borexino data are used to set a bound on the existence of such decays. We constrain the mixing of a heavy neutrino with mass 1.5 MeV≤mνH≤14 MeV to be |UeH|2≤(10-3-4×10-6), respectively. These are tighter limits on the mixing parameters than obtained in previous experiments at nuclear reactors and accelerators.
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