Measuring the mass of a sterile neutrino with a very short baseline reactor experiment

An analysis of the world's neutrino oscillation data, including sterile neutrinos, [M. Sorel, C. M. Conrad, and M. H. Shaevitz, Phys. Rev. D 70, 073004 (2004)] found a peak in the allowed region at a mass-squared difference {delta}m{sup 2} congruent with 0.9 eV{sup 2}. We trace its origin to harmonic oscillations in the electron survival probability P{sub ee} as a function of L/E, the ratio of baseline to neutrino energy, as measured in the near detector of the Bugey experiment. We find a second occurrence for {delta}m{sup 2} congruent with 1.9 eV{sup 2}. We point out that the phenomenon of harmonic oscillations of P{sub ee} as a function of L/E, as seen in the Bugey experiment, can be used to measure the mass-squared difference associated with a sterile neutrino in the range from a fraction of an eV{sup 2} to several eV{sup 2} (compatible with that indicated by the LSND experiment), as well as measure the amount of electron-sterile neutrino mixing. We observe that the experiment is independent, to lowest order, of the size of the reactor and suggest the possibility of a small reactor with a detector sitting at a very short baseline.