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Explaining the MiniBooNE excess through a mixed model of neutrino oscillation and decay

S. Vergani1,*, N. W. Kamp2,†, A. Diaz2,‡, C. A. Argüelles3,§, J. M. Conrad2,∥, M. H. Shaevitz4,¶, and M. A. Uchida1,**

  • 1University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, United Kingdom
  • 2Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
  • 3Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
  • 4Department of Physics, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA

  • *sv408@hep.phy.cam.ac.uk
  • †nwkamp@mit.edu
  • ‡diaza@mit.edu
  • §carguelles@fas.harvard.edu
  • ∥conrad@mit.edu
  • shaevitz@nevis.columbia.edu
  • **mauchida@hep.phy.cam.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. D 104, 095005 – Published 8 November, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.104.095005

Abstract

The electronlike excess observed by the MiniBooNE experiment is explained with a model comprising a new low mass state (O(1)  eV) participating in neutrino oscillations and a new high mass state (O(100)  MeV) that decays to ν+γ. Short-baseline oscillation datasets are used to predict the oscillation parameters. Fitting the MiniBooNE energy and scattering angle data, there is a narrow joint allowed region for the decay contribution at 95% CL. The result is a substantial improvement over the single sterile neutrino oscillation model, with Δχ2/dof=19.3/2 for a decay coupling of 2.8×10−7  GeV−1, high mass state of 376 MeV, oscillation mixing angle of 7×10−4 and mass splitting of 1.3  eV2. This model predicts that no clear oscillation signature will be observed in the FNAL short baseline program due to the low signal-level.

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Phys. Rev. D 104, 095005– Published 8 November, 2021
  • Received 26 May 2021
  • Accepted 29 September 2021
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