Constraining sterile neutrinos with a low energy beta-beam

Abstract

We study the possibility to use a low energy beta-beam facility to search for sterile neutrinos by measuring the disappearance of electron anti-neutrinos. This channel is particularly sensitive since it allows to use inverse beta decay as detection reaction; thus it is free from hadronic uncertainties, provided the neutrino energy is below the pion production threshold. This corresponds to a choice of the Lorentz gamma=30 for the 6He parent ion. Moreover, a disappearance measurement allows the constraint of sterile neutrino properties independently of any CP violating effects. A moderate detector size of a few 100 tons and ion production rates of 2E13 per second are sufficient to constrain mixing angles as small as \sin^22\theta=0.01 at 99% confidence level.