- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review D

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Enhanced active-sterile neutrino polarizability at the intensity frontier

Julia Gehrlein1,*, Anil Thapa1,†, and Adrian Thompson2,‡

  • *Contact author: julia.gehrlein@colostate.edu
  • †Contact author: a.thapa@colostate.edu
  • ‡Contact author: a.thompson@northwestern.edu
PDF

Phys. Rev. D 113, 115062 – Published 25 June, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/psm8-dypl

Abstract

Electromagnetic probes of neutrinos can provide insights into physics beyond the Standard Model. Among the possible electromagnetic interactions of neutrinos is neutrino polarizability, a dimension-7 effective operator that couples two neutrinos to two photons. In this manuscript, we study a realization of the neutrino polarizability operator in which one of the active neutrinos is replaced by a sterile neutrino. We derive new constraints on this active-sterile neutrino polarizability from its contribution to neutrino-nucleus scattering with a single photon in the final state at neutrino experiments. We show that a realization of this operator via a light mediator can explain the MiniBooNE low-energy excess while remaining consistent with other experimental constraints. Finally, we comment on additional model realizations of this higher-dimensional operator.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (101)

  1. L. Wolfenstein, Neutrino oscillations in matter, Phys. Rev. D 17, 2369 (1978).
  2. M. Gell-Mann, The reaction γ+γ→nu+ν¯, Phys. Rev. Lett. 6, 70 (1961).
  3. M. J. Levine, The process γ+γ→ν+ν¯(*), Il Nuovo Cimento A (1965–1970) 48, 67 (1967).
  4. G. Karl and V. Novikov, Photon-neutrino interactions, JETP Lett. 81, 249 (2005).
  5. J. Liu, Low-energy neutrino-two-photon interactions, Phys. Rev. D 44, 2879 (1991).
  6. R. J. Crewther, J. Finjord, and P. Minkowski, The annihilation process νν¯→γγ with massive neutrinos in cosmology, Nucl. Phys. B207, 269 (1982).
  7. S. Dodelson and G. Feinberg, Neutrino-two-photon vertex, Phys. Rev. D 43, 913 (1991).
  8. D. A. Dicus and W. W. Repko, Photon neutrino scattering, Phys. Rev. D 48, 5106 (1993).
  9. D. A. Dicus and W. W. Repko, Photon—neutrino interactions, Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 569 (1997).
  10. D. A. Dicus and W. W. Repko, Neutrino photon scattering in a magnetic field, Phys. Lett. B 482, 141 (2000).
  11. M. V. Chistyakov and N. V. Mikheev, Photon neutrino interactions in strong magnetic field, Mod. Phys. Lett. A 17, 2553 (2002).
  12. R. Mohammadi and S.-S. Xue, Laser photons acquire circular polarization by interacting with a Dirac or Majorana neutrino beam, Phys. Lett. B 731, 272 (2014).
  13. M. Petropavlova and A. Smetana, Towards interferometry of neutrino electromagnetism, Phys. Rev. D 106, 053003 (2022).
  14. N. Ahmadiniaz, R. Shaisultanov, and R. Schützhold, Assisted neutrino pair production in combined external fields, Phys. Rev. D 108, 036003 (2023).
  15. S. Bansal, G. Paz, A. Petrov, M. Tammaro, and J. Zupan, Enhanced neutrino polarizability, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2023) 142.
  16. J. Gehrlein, I. M. Shoemaker, and A. Thapa, Monophotons at neutrino experiments from neutrino polarizability, Phys. Rev. D 112, 075010 (2025).
  17. S. Carey, P. Machado, G. Paz, A. A. Petrov, A. Sousa, M. Tammaro, and J. Zupan, Searching for neutrino polarizability at DUNE, arXiv:2508.16724.
  18. P. Coloma, E. Fernández-Martínez, J. López-Pavón, X. Marcano, D. Naredo-Tuero, and S. Urrea, Improving the global SMEFT picture with bounds on neutrino NSI, J. High Energy Phys. 02 (2025) 137.
  19. T. Li, X.-D. Ma, and M. A. Schmidt, Constraints on the charged currents in general neutrino interactions with sterile neutrinos, J. High Energy Phys. 10 (2020) 115.
  20. H.-L. Li, Z. Ren, M.-L. Xiao, J.-H. Yu, and Y.-H. Zheng, Operator bases in effective field theories with sterile neutrinos: d≤9, J. High Energy Phys. 11 (2021) 003.
  21. P. A. Machado, O. Palamara, and D. W. Schmitz, The short-baseline neutrino program at Fermilab, Annu. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 69, 363 (2019).
  22. B. Abi et al. (DUNE Collaboration), Deep underground neutrino experiment (DUNE), far detector technical design report, volume II: DUNE physics, arXiv:2002.03005.
  23. V. Hewes et al. (DUNE Collaboration), Deep underground neutrino experiment (DUNE) near detector conceptual design report, Instruments 5, 31 (2021).
  24. A. Abusleme et al. (JUNO Collaboration), TAO conceptual design report: A precision measurement of the reactor antineutrino spectrum with sub-percent energy resolution, arXiv:2005.08745.
  25. M. Andriamirado et al. (PROSPECT Collaboration), PROSPECT-II physics opportunities, J. Phys. G 49, 070501 (2022).
  26. A. A. Aguilar-Arevalo et al. (CCM Collaboration), Prospects for detecting axionlike particles at the Coherent CAPTAIN-Mills experiment, Phys. Rev. D 107, 095036 (2023).
  27. A. A. Aguilar-Arevalo et al. (CCM Collaboration), First dark matter search results from Coherent CAPTAIN-Mills, Phys. Rev. D 106, 012001 (2022).
  28. A. A. Aguilar-Arevalo et al. (CCM Collaboration), Testing meson portal dark sector solutions to the MiniBooNE anomaly at the Coherent CAPTAIN Mills experiment, Phys. Rev. D 109, 095017 (2024); 111, 035030 (2025).
  29. S. Ajimura et al. (JSNS2 Collaboration), Technical design report (TDR): Searching for a sterile neutrino at J-PARC MLF (E56, JSNS2), arXiv:1705.08629.
  30. S. Ajimura et al. (JSNS2 Collaboration), Proposal: JSNS2-II, arXiv:2012.10807.
  31. D. Akimov et al. (COHERENT Collaboration), The COHERENT experimental program, in Snowmass 2021 (2022), arXiv:2204.04575.
  32. C. T. Kullenberg et al. (NOMAD Collaboration), A search for single photon events in neutrino interactions, Phys. Lett. B 706, 268 (2012).
  33. K. Abe et al. (T2K Collaboration), Search for neutral-current induced single photon production at the ND280 near detector in T2K, J. Phys. G 46, 08LT01 (2019).
  34. P. Abratenko et al. (MicroBooNE Collaboration), Inclusive search for anomalous single-photon production in MicroBooNE, arXiv:2502.06064.
  35. A. A. Aguilar-Arevalo et al. (MiniBooNE Collaboration), Significant excess of electronlike events in the MiniBooNE short-baseline neutrino experiment, Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 221801 (2018).
  36. A. A. Aguilar-Arevalo et al. (MiniBooNE Collaboration), Updated MiniBooNE neutrino oscillation results with increased data and new background studies, Phys. Rev. D 103, 052002 (2021).
  37. V. Brdar and J. Kopp, Can standard model and experimental uncertainties resolve the MiniBooNE anomaly?, Phys. Rev. D 105, 115024 (2022).
  38. K. J. Kelly and J. Kopp, More ingredients for an Altarelli cocktail at MiniBooNE, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2023) 113.
  39. J. A. Harvey, C. T. Hill, and R. J. Hill, Standard model gauging of the Wess-Zumino-Witten term: Anomalies, global currents and pseudo-Chern-Simons interactions, Phys. Rev. D 77, 085017 (2008).
  40. J. A. Harvey, C. T. Hill, and R. J. Hill, Anomaly mediated neutrino-photon interactions at finite baryon density, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 261601 (2007).
  41. L. Alvarez-Ruso and E. Saul-Sala, Neutrino interactions with matter and the MiniBooNE anomaly, Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 230, 4373 (2021).
  42. W. Abdallah, R. Gandhi, and S. Roy, Requirements on common solutions to the LSND and MiniBooNE excesses: A post-MicroBooNE study, J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2022) 160.
  43. A. N. Ioannisian, Ratio of γ/π0 production rates in neutrino-nucleus interactions in the Δ resonance mass region, Phys. Rev. D 112, 094034 (2025).
  44. B. Dutta, A. Karthikeyan, D. Kim, A. Thompson, and R. G. Van de Water, Photon excess from dark matter and neutrino scattering at MiniBooNE and MicroBooNE, arXiv:2504.08071.
  45. N. W. Kamp, Experimental and phenomenological investigations of the MiniBooNE anomaly, Ph.D. thesis, MIT, 2023, arXiv:2308.12015.
  46. A. M. Abdullahi, J. Hoefken Zink, M. Hostert, D. Massaro, and S. Pascoli, Panorama of new-physics explanations to the MiniBooNE excess, Phys. Rev. D 111, 035028 (2025).
  47. Y.-S. Tsai, Pair production and bremsstrahlung of charged leptons, Rev. Mod. Phys. 46, 815 (1974).
  48. J. Engel, S. Pittel, and P. Vogel, Nuclear physics of dark matter detection, Int. J. Mod. Phys. E 1, 1 (1992).
  49. V. Brdar, B. Dutta, W. Jang, D. Kim, I. M. Shoemaker, Z. Tabrizi, A. Thompson, and J. Yu, Finding BSM needles in electromagnetic haystacks at DUNE, arXiv:2507.21228.
  50. N. D. Christensen and C. Duhr, feynrules—Feynman rules made easy, Comput. Phys. Commun. 180, 1614 (2009).
  51. J. Alwall, R. Frederix, S. Frixione, V. Hirschi, F. Maltoni, O. Mattelaer, H. S. Shao, T. Stelzer, P. Torrielli, and M. Zaro, The automated computation of tree-level and next-to-leading order differential cross sections, and their matching to parton shower simulations, J. High Energy Phys. 07 (2014) 079.
  52. R. H. Helm, Inelastic and elastic scattering of 187-Mev electrons from selected even-even nuclei, Phys. Rev. 104, 1466 (1956).
  53. J. D. Lewin and P. F. Smith, Review of mathematics, numerical factors, and corrections for dark matter experiments based on elastic nuclear recoil, Astropart. Phys. 6, 87 (1996).
  54. R. D. Ball, V. Bertone, S. Carrazza, L. Del Debbio, S. Forte, A. Guffanti, N. P. Hartland, and J. Rojo (NNPDF Collaboration), Parton distributions with QED corrections, Nucl. Phys. B877, 290 (2013).
  55. C. Adams et al. (MicroBooNE Collaboration), Reconstruction and measurement of O(100)  MeV energy electromagnetic activity from π0→γγ decays in the MicroBooNE LArTPC, J. Instrum. 15, P02007 (2020).
  56. D. Caratelli et al., Low-energy physics in neutrino LArTPCs, arXiv:2203.00740.
  57. S. N. Gninenko, The MiniBooNE anomaly and heavy neutrino decay, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 241802 (2009).
  58. S. N. Gninenko, A resolution of puzzles from the LSND, KARMEN, and MiniBooNE experiments, Phys. Rev. D 83, 015015 (2011).
  59. S. N. Gninenko, New limits on radiative sterile neutrino decays from a search for single photons in neutrino interactions, Phys. Lett. B 710, 86 (2012).
  60. A. Radionov, Constraints on electromagnetic properties of sterile neutrinos from MiniBooNE results, Phys. Rev. D 88, 015016 (2013).
  61. M. Masip, P. Masjuan, and D. Meloni, Heavy neutrino decays at MiniBooNE, J. High Energy Phys. 01 (2013) 106.
  62. T. Schwetz, A. Zhou, and J.-Y. Zhu, Constraining active-sterile neutrino transition magnetic moments at DUNE near and far detectors, J. High Energy Phys. 21 (2020) 200.
  63. G. Magill, R. Plestid, M. Pospelov, and Y.-D. Tsai, Dipole portal to heavy neutral leptons, Phys. Rev. D 98, 115015 (2018).
  64. O. Fischer, Á. Hernández-Cabezudo, and T. Schwetz, Explaining the MiniBooNE excess by a decaying sterile neutrino with mass in the 250 MeV range, Phys. Rev. D 101, 075045 (2020).
  65. N. W. Kamp, M. Hostert, A. Schneider, S. Vergani, C. A. Argüelles, J. M. Conrad, M. H. Shaevitz, and M. A. Uchida, Dipole-coupled heavy-neutral-lepton explanations of the MiniBooNE excess including constraints from MINERvA data, Phys. Rev. D 107, 055009 (2023).
  66. S. Vergani, N. W. Kamp, A. Diaz, C. A. Argüelles, J. M. Conrad, M. H. Shaevitz, and M. A. Uchida, Explaining the MiniBooNE excess through a mixed model of neutrino oscillation and decay, Phys. Rev. D 104, 095005 (2021).
  67. A. Datta, S. Kamali, and D. Marfatia, Dark sector origin of the KOTO and MiniBooNE anomalies, Phys. Lett. B 807, 135579 (2020).
  68. B. Dutta, D. Kim, A. Thompson, R. T. Thornton, and R. G. Van de Water, Solutions to the MiniBooNE anomaly from new physics in charged meson decays, Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 111803 (2022).
  69. C.-H. V. Chang, C.-R. Chen, S.-Y. Ho, and S.-Y. Tseng, Explaining the MiniBooNE anomalous excess via a leptophilic ALP-sterile neutrino coupling, Phys. Rev. D 104, 015030 (2021).
  70. M. A. Acero et al., White paper on light sterile neutrino searches and related phenomenology, J. Phys. G 51, 120501 (2024).
  71. E. Wang, L. Alvarez-Ruso, and J. Nieves, Photon emission in neutral current interactions at intermediate energies, Phys. Rev. C 89, 015503 (2014).
  72. F. Larios, M. A. Perez, and G. Tavares-Velasco, Constraints on neutrino photon interactions from rare Z decays, Phys. Lett. B 531, 231 (2002).
  73. E. Aprile et al. (XENON Collaboration), Search for new physics in electronic recoil data from XENONnT, Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 161805 (2022).
  74. M. Agostini et al. (Borexino Collaboration), Limiting neutrino magnetic moments with Borexino phase-II solar neutrino data, Phys. Rev. D 96, 091103 (2017).
  75. A. Alves, A. G. Dias, and D. D. Lopes, Probing ALP-sterile neutrino couplings at the LHC, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2020) 074.
  76. A. de Giorgi, L. Merlo, and J.-L. Tastet, Probing HNL-ALP couplings at colliders, Fortschr. Phys. 71, 2300027 (2023).
  77. A. M. Abdullahi, A. de Gouvêa, B. Dutta, I. M. Shoemaker, and Z. Tabrizi, Heavy neutral leptons via axionlike particles at neutrino facilities, Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 261802 (2024).
  78. J. Bonilla, B. Gavela, and J. Machado-Rodríguez, Limits on ALP-neutrino couplings from loop-level processes, Phys. Rev. D 109, 055023 (2024).
  79. J. Heeck and H. H. Patel, Majoron at two loops, Phys. Rev. D 100, 095015 (2019).
  80. P. Abratenko et al. (MicroBooNE Collaboration), First search for neutral current coherent single-photon production in MicroBooNE, arXiv:2502.06091.
  81. E. Wang, L. Alvarez-Ruso, and J. Nieves, Photon emission in neutral-current interactions at intermediate energies, Phys. Rev. C 89, 015503 (2014).
  82. P. Abratenko et al. (MicroBooNE Collaboration), Enhanced search for neutral current Δ radiative single-photon production in MicroBooNE, Phys. Rev. D 112, L091101 (2025).
  83. R. Acciarri et al. (SBND Collaboration), The short-baseline near detector at Fermilab: Input to the European strategy for particle physics 2026 update, arXiv:2504.00245.
  84. F. A. Alrahman et al. (ICARUS Collaboration), Search for a hidden sector scalar from kaon decay in the dimuon final state at ICARUS, Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 151801 (2025).
  85. M. Dentler, Á. Hernández-Cabezudo, J. Kopp, P. A. N. Machado, M. Maltoni, I. Martinez-Soler, and T. Schwetz, Updated global analysis of neutrino oscillations in the presence of eV-scale sterile neutrinos, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2018) 010.
  86. S. Böser, C. Buck, C. Giunti, J. Lesgourgues, L. Ludhova, S. Mertens, A. Schukraft, and M. Wurm, Status of light sterile neutrino searches, Prog. Part. Nucl. Phys. 111, 103736 (2020).
  87. G. Lucente, P. Carenza, T. Fischer, M. Giannotti, and A. Mirizzi, Heavy axion-like particles and core-collapse supernovae: Constraints and impact on the explosion mechanism, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 12 (2020) 008.
  88. D. F. G. Fiorillo, G. G. Raffelt, and E. Vitagliano, Strong supernova 1987A constraints on bosons decaying to neutrinos, Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 021001 (2023).
  89. M. J. Dolan, T. Ferber, C. Hearty, F. Kahlhoefer, and K. Schmidt-Hoberg, Revised constraints and Belle II sensitivity for visible and invisible axion-like particles, J. High Energy Phys. 12 (2017) 094; 03 (2021) 190(E).
  90. N. Sabti, J. Alvey, M. Escudero, M. Fairbairn, and D. Blas, Addendum: Refined bounds on MeV-scale thermal dark sectors from BBN and the CMB, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 08 (2021) A01.
  91. A. De Gouvêa, M. Sen, W. Tangarife, and Y. Zhang, Dodelson-Widrow mechanism in the presence of self-interacting neutrinos, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 081802 (2020).
  92. J. M. Berryman, A. de Gouvêa, K. J. Kelly, and Y. Zhang, Dark matter and neutrino mass from the smallest non-Abelian chiral dark sector, Phys. Rev. D 96, 075010 (2017).
  93. J. S. Bell and R. Jackiw, A PCAC puzzle: π0→γγ in the σ model, Nuovo Cimento A 60, 47 (1969).
  94. S. L. Adler, Axial vector vertex in spinor electrodynamics, Phys. Rev. 177, 2426 (1969).
  95. T. A. Mueller, D. Lhuillier, M. Fallot, A. Letourneau, S. Cormon, M. Fechner, L. Giot, T. Lasserre, J. Martino, G. Mention, A. Porta, and F. Yermia, Improved predictions of reactor antineutrino spectra, Phys. Rev. C 83, 054615 (2011).
  96. M. Deniz et al. (TEXONO Collaboration), Measurement of ν¯e-electron scattering cross-section with a CsI(Tl) scintillating crystal array at the Kuo-Sheng nuclear power reactor, Phys. Rev. D 81, 072001 (2010).
  97. A. A. Aguilar-Arevalo et al. (MiniBooNE Collaboration), The neutrino flux prediction at MiniBooNE, Phys. Rev. D 79, 072002 (2009).
  98. A. A. Aguilar-Arevalo et al. (MiniBooNE Collaboration), A combined νμ→νe and ν¯μ→ν¯e oscillation analysis of the MiniBooNE excesses, arXiv:1207.4809.
  99. P. Astier et al. (NOMAD Collaboration), Prediction of neutrino fluxes in the NOMAD experiment, Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., Sect. A 515, 800 (2003).
  100. J. Nowak, SBND and short-baseline neutrino program, https://indico.cern.ch/event/1234324/contributions/5686731/attachments/2774163/4836066/SBND_Nowak_NuPhys_Dec2023.pdf.
  101. L. Di Noto (ICARUS Collaboration), ICARUS at the short-baseline neutrino program: First results, Proc. Sci. ICHEP2024 (2025) 181.

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. D 113, 115062– Published 25 June, 2026
  • Received 7 February 2026
  • Accepted 3 June 2026
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation