The LSND/MiniBooNe excess events and heavy neutrino from muon and kaon decays

Abstract

It has been recently shown that puzzling excess events observed by the LSND and MiniBooNE neutrino experiments could be interpreted as a signal from the radiative decay of a heavy sterile neutrino (${\nu }_h$) of the mass from 40 to 80 MeV, with a muonic mixing strength $\mix \simeq 10^{-3} - 10^{-2}$, and the lifetime $10^{-11}<{\tau }_h<10^{-9}$ s. We discuss bounds on $\mix$ obtained from the recent precision measurements with muons and show that they are consistent with the above limits. If the ${\nu }_h$ exists its admixture in the ordinary muon or kaon decay would result in the decay chain $\muhd$ or $\khd$, respectively. We propose a new experiment for a sensitive search for these processes in $\mu$ and $K$ decays at rest allowing to either definitively confirm or exclude the existence of the ${\nu }_h$. To our knowledge, no experiment has specifically searched for the signature of radiative decay of massive neutrinos from particles decays as proposed in this work. The search is complementary to the current experimental efforts to clarify the origin of the LSND and MiniBooNE anomalies.

7 pages, 2 figures. Version to appear in PRD

References in corpus (5)

• How to find neutral leptons of the nuMSM?
• An Improved Limit on Invisible Decays of Positronium
• Resolution of puzzles from the LSND, KARMEN, and MiniBooNE experiments
• Muon Capture Constraints on Sterile Neutrino Properties
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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Constraints on Sterile Neutrinos in the MeV to GeV Mass Range
• New limits on radiative sterile neutrino decays from a search for single photons in neutrino interactions
• Production of heavy sterile neutrinos from vector boson decay at electroweak temperatures
• Space-time evolution of heavy sterile neutrinos in cascade decays
• Enhanced search for neutral current $\Delta$ radiative single-photon production in MicroBooNE