Sterile neutrinos and IceCube

Abstract

Although the framework for oscillations of the three neutrino flavors in the Standard Model has been convincingly established, indications persist that it may be incomplete. Challenges are coming from the LSND and MiniBooNe short-baseline experiments, from the neutrino sources used in the Gallex and Sage solar neutrino experiments and, more recently, from an a-posteriori analysis of reactor neutrino experiments. One way to accommodate the reported "anomalies", if real, is to introduce one or more sterile neutrinos in the mass range δm2 ∼ 1eV2. TeV atmospheric neutrinos propagating through the Earth undergo resonant oscillations in the presence of sterile neutrinos; a clear signature in a neutrino telescope like IceCube is the the change in shape of the zenith-energy distribution of the atmospheric neutrinos. IceCube detects more than 100,000 atmospheric neutrinos per year. Statistics do not limit such a measurement, but the uncertainties in modeling the expectations of the conventional 3-flavor scenario, including the systematics of the detector, do. We review the status and future perspectives of understanding the zenith and energy response of IceCube in the TeV energy range.