Active-sterile neutrino oscillations at INO-ICAL over a wide mass-squared range

We perform a detailed analysis for the prospects of detecting active-sterile oscillations involving a light sterile neutrino, over a large Delta m(41)(2) range of 10(-5) eV(2) to 10(2) eV(2), using 10 years of atmospheric neutrino data expected from the proposed 50 kt magnetized ICAL detector at the INO. This detector can observe the atmospheric nu(mu), and (nu) over bar (mu) separately over a wide range of energies and baselines, making it sensitive to the magnitude and sign of Arni i over a large range. If there is no light sterile neutrino, ICAL can place competitive upper limit on vertical bar U-mu 4 vertical bar(2) less than or similar to 0.02 at 90% C.L. for Delta m(41)(2) in the range (0.5-5) x 10(-3) eV(2). For the same vertical bar Delta m(41)(2)vertical bar range, ICAL would be able to determine its sign, exploiting the Earth's matter effect in mu(-) and mu(+) events separately if there is indeed a light sterile neutrino in Nature. This would help identify the neutrino mass ordering in the four-neutrino mixing scenario.