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 $\Delta m_{31}^2$, $\theta_{23}$, and $\theta_{13}$ 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 $\Delta m_{31}^2$ and smaller $\theta_{23}$, and basically removes all predictability for $\theta_{13}$. In addition, we discuss the sensitivities to the non-standard interaction parameters of the MINOS experiment alone. In particular, we examine the degeneracy between $\theta_{13}$ and the non-standard interaction parameter $\eps_{e\tau}$. We find that this degeneracy is responsible for the removal of the $\theta_{13}$ predictability and that the possible bound on $|\eps_{e\tau}|$ is competitive with direct bounds only if a more stringent external bound on $\theta_{13}$ is applied.