Towards Resolving the Gallium Anomaly

Abstract

A series of experiments studying neutrinos from intense radioactive sources have reported a deficit in the measured event rate which, in combination, has reached a statistical significance of $\sim 5\sigma$. In this paper, we explore avenues for explaining this anomaly, both within the Standard Model and beyond. First, we discuss possible biases in the predicted cross section for the detection reaction ${\nu }_e{+}^{71}\text{Ga}\to e^{-}{+}^{71}\text{Ge}$, which could arise from mismeasurement of the inverse process, ${}^{71}\text{Ge}$ decay, or from the presence of as yet unknown low-lying excited states of ${}^{71}\text{Ga}$. The latter would imply that not all ${}^{71}\text{Ge}$ decays go to the ground state of ${}^{71}\text{Ga}$, so the extraction of the ground state-to-ground state matrix element relevant for neutrino capture on gallium would be incorrect. Second, we scrutinize the measurement of the source intensity in gallium experiments, and we point out that a $\sim 2\%$ error in the branching ratios for ${}^{51}\text{Cr}$ decay would be enough to explain the anomaly. Third, we investigate the calibration of the radiochemical germanium extraction efficiency as a possible origin of anomaly. Finally, we outline several new explanations beyond the Standard Model, including scenarios with sterile neutrinos coupled to fuzzy dark matter or to dark energy, as well as a model with decaying sterile neutrinos. We critically assess the viability of these scenarios, and others that have been proposed, in a summary table.

19 pages, 5 figures, matches published version in JHEP

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