On the role of the ντ appearance in DUNE in constraining standard neutrino physics and beyond

Abstract

Abstract We consider the ν μ → ν τ appearance channel in the future Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) which offers a good statistics of the ν τ sample. In order to measure its impact on constraining the oscillation parameters, we consider several assumptions on the efficiency for ν τ charged-current signal events (with subsequent τ → e decay) and the related backgrounds and study the effects of various systematic uncertainties. Two different neutrino fluxes have been considered, namely a CP-violation optimized flux and a ν τ optimized flux. Our results show that the addition of the ν μ → ν τ appearance channel does not reduce the current uncertainties on the standard 3-ν oscillation parameters while it can improve in a significant way the sensitivity to the Non-Standard Interaction parameter |∈ μτ | and to the new mixing angle θ 34 of a sterile neutrino model of the 3 + 1 type.