Improved Constraints on Sterile Neutrino Mixing from Disappearance Searches in the MINOS, MINOS+, Daya Bay, and Bugey-3 Experiments

Author(s): Bay, Daya; Collaborations, MINOS; Adamson, P; An, FP; Anghel, I; Aurisano, A; Balantekin, AB; Band, HR; Barr, G; Bishai, M; Blake, A; Blyth, S; Cao, GF; Cao, J; Cao, SV; Carroll, TJ; Castromonte, CM; Chang, JF; Chang, Y; Chen, HS; Chen, R; Chen, SM; Chen, Y; Chen, YX; Cheng, J; Cheng, ZK; Cherwinka, JJ; Childress, S; Chu, MC; Chukanov, A; Coelho, JAB; Cummings, JP; Dash, N; Rijck, S De; Deng, FS; Ding, YY; Diwan, MV; Dohnal, T; Dolzhikov, D; Dove, J; Dvořak, M; Dwyer, DA; Evans, JJ; Feldman, GJ; Flanagan, W; Gabrielyan, M; Gallo, JP; Germani, S; Gomes, RA; Gonchar, M; Gong, GH; Gong, H; Gouffon, P; Graf, N; Grzelak, K; Gu, WQ; Guo, JY; Guo, L; Guo, XH; Guo, YH; Guo, Z; Habig, A; Hackenburg, RW; Hahn, SR; Hans, S; Hartnell, J; Hatcher, R; He, M; Heeger, KM; Heng, YK; Higuera, A; Holin, A; Hor, YK; Hsiung, YB; Hu, BZ; Hu, JR; Hu, T; Hu, ZJ; Huang, HX; Huang, J; Huang, XT; Huang, YB; Huber, P; Jaffe, DE; Jen, KL | Abstract: Searches for electron antineutrino, muon neutrino, and muon antineutrino disappearance driven by sterile neutrino mixing have been carried out by the Daya Bay and MINOS+ collaborations. This Letter presents the combined results of these searches, along with exclusion results from the Bugey-3 reactor experiment, framed in a minimally extended four-neutrino scenario. Significantly improved constraints on the $\theta_{\mu e}$ mixing angle are derived that constitute the most stringent limits to date over five orders of magnitude in the sterile mass-squared splitting $\Delta m^2_{41}$, excluding the 90% C.L. sterile-neutrino parameter space allowed by the LSND and MiniBooNE observations at 90% CL$_s$ for $\Delta m^2_{41}l5\,$eV$^2$.Furthermore, the LSND and MiniBooNE 99% C.L. allowed regions are excluded at 99% CL$_s$ for $\Delta m^2_{41}$ $l$ 1.2 eV$^2$.