Quasi-Sterile Neutrinos from Dark Sectors I. BSM matter effects in neutrino oscillations and the short-baseline anomalies

Abstract

Quasi-sterile neutrinos are a natural consequence of dark sectors interacting with the Standard Model (SM) sector via neutrino- and vector-portals. Essentially, quasi-sterile neutrinos are light dark sector fermions with two generic properties: (i) they mix with the active neutrinos of the SM, and (ii) they are charged under a vector mediator that couples feebly to SM matter. Various interesting phenomenological consequences result from this class of particles. In this article, we investigate one such consequence: new, beyond the SM matter effects that can alter in-medium neutrino oscillations. In particular, for special windows of energy and matter densities, active neutrinos can resonantly oscillate into sterile neutrinos. We take advantage of this feature to build a quasi-sterile neutrino model that can explain the MiniBooNE and LSND anomalies, while remaining compatible with observations from long-baseline reactor- and accelerator-based neutrino experiments. This model is also likely compatible with the recent results reported by the MicroBooNE collaboration (albeit we cannot precisely quantify this claim due to a lack of information in MicroBooNE's public data releases to date). Implications for solar neutrinos and ${\nu }_e$ disappearance searches are also briefly discussed.

39 pages; 12 figures; comments welcome. V2: new figure and brief discussion added on resonant effects in solar/atmospheric neutrino propagation through the Earth; brief comment added on possible effects of new CP-violating phases in the full model; matches content of published version in JHEP

References in corpus (60)

• A Theory of Dark Matter
• The fate of hints: updated global analysis of three-flavor neutrino oscillations
• Observation of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering
• Excess Electronic Recoil Events in XENON1T
• Sterile neutrino search at NEOS Experiment
• Feebly-Interacting Particles:FIPs 2020 Workshop Report
• Dark photon limits: a handbook
• Sterile neutrino oscillations after first MiniBooNE results
• Updated MiniBooNE Neutrino Oscillation Results with Increased Data and New Background Studies
• An Improved Measurement of Neutrino Oscillation Parameters by the NOvA Experiment
• Sterile Neutrinos
• Results from the Baksan Experiment on Sterile Transitions (BEST)
• Spectral Structure of Electron Antineutrinos from Nuclear Reactors
• The Search for Feebly-Interacting Particles
• Improved constraints on neutrino mixing from the T2K experiment with $3.13\times 10^{21}$ protons on target
• Reactor antineutrino anomaly in light of recent flux model refinements
• Exploring New Physics with O(keV) Electron Recoils in Direct Detection Experiments
• Sterile Neutrinos or Flux Uncertainties? - Status of the Reactor Anti-Neutrino Anomaly
• Searching for eV-scale sterile neutrinos with eight years of atmospheric neutrinos at the IceCube neutrino telescope
• Explaining the MiniBooNE excess by a decaying sterile neutrino with mass in the 250 MeV range
• The 5 MeV bump - a nuclear whodunit mystery
• Imprints of CP violation induced by sterile neutrinos in T2K data
• Large Neutrino Magnetic Moments in the Light of Recent Experiments
• The Future of Solar Neutrinos
• A Dark Seesaw Solution to Low Energy Anomalies: MiniBooNE, the muon $(g-2)$, and BaBar
• Light new physics in XENON1T
• Precision constraints for three-flavor neutrino oscillations from the full MINOS+ and MINOS data set
• Constraining the neutrino magnetic dipole moment from white dwarf pulsations
• MicroBooNE and the ${\nu }_e$ Interpretation of the MiniBooNE Low-Energy Excess
• Statistical significance of the sterile-neutrino hypothesis in the context of reactor and gallium data
• Neutrino Oscillation Constraints on U(1)' Models: from Non-Standard Interactions to Long-Range Forces
• Understanding the MiniBooNE and the muon and electron $g-2$ anomalies with a light $Z^{\prime }$ and a second Higgs doublet
• Reactor Fuel Fraction Information on the Antineutrino Anomaly
• Search for sterile neutrino oscillation using RENO and NEOS data
• Testing sterile neutrino mixing with present and future solar neutrino data
• Dark sector origin of the KOTO and MiniBooNE anomalies
• On The Decaying-Sterile Neutrino Solution to the Electron (Anti)Neutrino Appearance Anomalies
• Explaining the MiniBooNE Excess Through a Mixed Model of Oscillation and Decay
• Search for an anomalous excess of charged-current quasi-elastic ${\nu }_e$ interactions with the MicroBooNE experiment using Deep-Learning-based reconstruction
• BEST Impact on Sterile Neutrino Hypothesis
• Combining Sterile Neutrino Fits to Short Baseline Data with IceCube Data
• Single photon events from neutral current interactions at MiniBooNE
• On the single photon background to nu_e appearance at MiniBooNE
• Can neutrino-induced photon production explain the low energy excess in MiniBooNE?
• Neutrino Physics Opportunities with the IsoDAR Source at Yemilab
• Solutions to the MiniBooNE Anomaly from New Physics in Charged Meson Decays
• Statistical Significance of Reactor Antineutrino Active-Sterile Oscillations
• An Altarelli Cocktail for the MiniBooNE Anomaly?
• Constraints on Decaying Sterile Neutrinos from Solar Antineutrinos
• Neutrino Interactions with Matter and the MiniBooNE anomaly
• The Not-So-Sterile 4th Neutrino: Constraints on New Gauge Interactions from Neutrino Oscillation Experiments
• Confronting the short-baseline oscillation anomalies with a single sterile neutrino and non-standard matter effects
• Resonance refraction and neutrino oscillations
• Solar Active-Sterile Neutrino Conversion with Atomic Effects at Dark Matter Direct Detection Experiments
• Neutrino decoherence in an electron and nucleon background
• Sterile neutrinos with altered dispersion relations revisited
• Electromagnetic neutrino: The basic processes and astrophysical probes
• IsoDAR@Yemilab: A Conceptual Design Report for the Deployment of the Isotope Decay-At-Rest Experiment in Korea's New Underground Laboratory, Yemilab
• Analysis of the result of the Neutrino-4 experiment in conjunction with other experiments on the search for sterile neutrinos within the framework of the 3 + 1 neutrino model
• The neutrino emission from thermal processes in very massive stars in the local universe

Cited by in corpus (2)

• First constraints on light sterile neutrino oscillations from combined appearance and disappearance searches with the MicroBooNE detector
• A 17 MeV pseudoscalar and the LSND, MiniBooNE and ATOMKI anomalies