On Sterile neutrino explanation of LSND and MiniBooNE anomalies

Abstract

We examine the compatibility between existing experimental data and a recently proposed explanation of the LSND and MiniBooNE anomalies, given in terms of a sterile neutrino $N$ whose decay is dominated by a radiative mode. We find that current experimental data on $\tau \to \mu \nu \nu \gamma$ decays are compatible with the sterile neutrino parameters required for the explanation of the anomalies, but $K\to \mu \nu \gamma$ shows a marginal tension with those parameters. We also propose experimental cuts on radiative $K$ decays that could test the sterile neutrino hypothesis better. Finally, we study the contribution of this sterile neutrino to $K\to \mu \nu ee$, and find that measurements of this process would provide powerful tests for the sterile neutrino explanation of the LSND and MiniBooNE anomalies, if the experimental cut on the invariant mass of the $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ pair could be reduced from its current value of 145 MeV to a value below 40 MeV.

6 pages, 2 figures, experimental cut taken into account, some conclusions changed

References in corpus (7)

• Event Excess in the MiniBooNE Search for ${\bar{\nu }}_{\mu }\to {\bar{\nu }}_e$ Oscillations
• Sterile neutrinos in lepton number and lepton flavor violating decays
• Resolution of puzzles from the LSND, KARMEN, and MiniBooNE experiments
• Muon Capture Constraints on Sterile Neutrino Properties
• On sterile neutrino mixing with ν_τ
• Heavy-neutrino decays at neutrino telescopes
• The LSND/MiniBooNe excess events and heavy neutrino from muon and kaon decays

Cited by in corpus (18)

• Testing New Physics Explanations of MiniBooNE Anomaly at Neutrino Scattering Experiments
• Event Generators for High-Energy Physics Experiments
• Searching for eV-scale sterile neutrinos with eight years of atmospheric neutrinos at the IceCube neutrino telescope
• Exploring a Non-Minimal Sterile Neutrino Model Involving Decay at IceCube and Beyond
• On The Decaying-Sterile Neutrino Solution to the Electron (Anti)Neutrino Appearance Anomalies
• New limits on radiative sterile neutrino decays from a search for single photons in neutrino interactions
• Explaining the MiniBooNE Excess Through a Mixed Model of Oscillation and Decay
• Heavy Sterile Neutrinos in Tau Decays and the MiniBooNE Anomaly
• Searching for a Sterile Neutrino in Tau Decays at B-factories
• Searching for sterile neutrinos from $\pi$ and $K$ decays
• Sterile neutrino decay as a common origin for LSND/MiniBooNe and T2K excess events
• Left-Right Symmetric Models at the High-Intensity Frontier
• Dipole-Coupled Neutrissimo Explanations of the MiniBooNE Excess Including Constraints from MINERvA Data
• A Short Travel for Neutrinos in Large Extra Dimensions
• A novel event generator for the automated simulation of neutrino scattering
• Space-time evolution of heavy sterile neutrinos in cascade decays
• First Search for Unstable Sterile Neutrinos with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
• Charged lepton mixing via heavy sterile neutrinos