Can OPERA help in constraining neutrino non-standard interactions?

Understand

We study how much the unique ability of the OPERA experiment to directly detect \nu_\tau can help in probing new, non-standard contact interactions of the third family of neutrinos.

• We perform a combined analysis of future, high-statistics MINOS and OPERA data.
• For the case of non-standard interactions in \nu_\mu to \nu_e transitions we also include the impact of possible DoubleCHOOZ data.
• In all cases we find that the \nu_\tau sample of OPERA is too small to be statistically significant, even if one doubles the nominal exposure of OPERA to 4.5E20 pot.