Exploring flavor-dependent long-range forces in long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments

Abstract

Abstract: The Standard Model gauge group can be extended with minimal matter content by introducing anomaly free U(1) symmetry, such as Le − Lμ or Le − Lτ. If the neutral gauge boson corresponding to this abelian symmetry is ultra-light, then it will give rise to flavor-dependent long-range leptonic force, which can have significant impact on neutrino oscillations. For an instance, the electrons inside the Sun can generate a flavor-dependent long-range potential at the Earth surface, which can suppress the νμ → νe appearance probability in terrestrial experiments. The sign of this potential is opposite for anti-neutrinos, and affects the oscillations of (anti-)neutrinos in different fashion. This feature invokes fake CP-asymmetry like the SM matter effect and can severely affect the leptonic CP-violation searches in long-baseline experiments. In this paper, we study in detail the possible impacts of these long-range flavor-diagonal neutral current interactions due to Le − Lμ symmetry, when (anti-)neutrinos travel from Fermilab to Homestake (1300 km) and CERN to Pyhäsalmi (2290 km) in the context of future high-precision superbeam facilities, DUNE and LBNO respectively. If there is no signal of long-range force, DUNE (LBNO) can place stringent constraint on the effective gauge coupling αeμ < 1.9 × 10−53 (7.8 × 10−54) at 90% C.L., which is almost 30 (70) times better than the existing bound from the Super-Kamiokande experiment. We also observe that if αeμ ≥ 2 × 10−52, the CP-violation discovery reach of these future facilities vanishes completely. The mass hierarchy measurement remains robust in DUNE (LBNO) if αeμ < 5 × 10−52 (10−52).