Exotic V[over-bar][subscript e] -->V[over-bar][subscript slash-e] oscillations in Double Chooz

Abstract

In this thesis, we estimate the sensitivity of Double Chooz, a reactor Ve --> Ve experiment, to detect "early" neutrino oscillations based on a three-active plus one-sterile, or (3 + 1), neutrino mixing model by implementing a least-squares fit to the simulated electron antineutrino reactor spectrum1 . By comparing the expected spectra from the null hypothesis and the (3 + 1) oscillation hypothesis at the Double Chooz near detector L = 200 m, we expect a modest sterile neutrino discovery potential, limited by the ~ 2% reactor flux uncertainty. This potential may be expanded by employing a Double Chooz-like detector at a very short baseline L = 6 m from the reactor. At both baselines, the p-value for the null hypothesis was extremely small p ~ 0.004, which is compelling evidence for rejecting this hypothesis. Very short baseline antineutrino oscillation reactor experiments may help to resolve the current global incompatibilities between neutrino and antineutrino data sets.