Sensitivity to neutrino-antineutrino transitions for boron neutrinos

Abstract

Neutrino-antineutrino conversion is an important new physics process. The observation of this phenomenon could indicate total lepton number violation and potential CPT-violation. Searching for the appearance of electron antineutrinos from solar neutrinos from $\rm^8B$ decay allows us to hunt for this rare process, although it can also be explained by other mechanisms or hypotheses. This analysis examines the capabilities of observing neutrino-antineutrino transition from $\rm^8B$ unoscillated solar neutrinos using different liquid scintillator detector configurations. High energy reactor neutrinos and atmospheric neutrinos are the two dominant background sources. Large volume liquid scintillator detectors with deep underground shielding, placed far away from reactors and with capabilities of pulse shaped discrimination will significantly increase the search sensitivity. It is demonstrated that for the next generation of large liquid scintillator detectors being planned or under construction, the sensitivity to the average probability of neutrino-antineutrino transitions can reach $10^{-6}$, which is an order of magnitude better than the current best experimental limits.