Constraint on Neutrino Decay with Medium-Baseline Reactor Neutrino Oscillation Experiments

Understand

The experimental bound on lifetime of nu_3, the neutrino mass eigenstate with the smallest nu_e component, is much weaker than those of nu_1 and nu_2 by many orders of magnitude to which the astrophysical constraints apply.

• We argue that the future reactor neutrino oscillation experiments with medium-baseline (~ 50 km), such as JUNO or RENO-50, has the best chance of placing the most stringent constraint on nu_3 lifetime among all neutrino experiments which utilize the artificial source neutrinos.
• Assuming decay into invisible states, we show by a detailed chi^2 analysis that the nu_3 lifetime divided by its mass, tau_3/m_3, can be constrained to be tau_3/m_3 > 7.5 (5.5) x 10^{-11} s/eV at 95% (99%) C.L.
• by 100 kt.years exposure by JUNO.