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Search for an Anomalous Production of Charged-Current νe Interactions without Visible Pions across Multiple Kinematic Observables in MicroBooNE

P. Abratenko38, D. Andrade Aldana14, L. Arellano21, J. Asaadi37, A. Ashkenazi36, S. Balasubramanian12, B. Baller12, A. Barnard28, G. Barr28 et al. (MicroBooNE Collaboration*)

G. Barr28, D. Barrow28, J. Barrow25, V. Basque12, J. Bateman15,21, O. Benevides Rodrigues14, S. Berkman24, A. Bhat7, M. Bhattacharya12, M. Bishai3, A. Blake18, B. Bogart23, T. Bolton17, M. B. Brunetti40, L. Camilleri10, D. Caratelli4, F. Cavanna12, G. Cerati12, A. Chappell40, Y. Chen32, J. M. Conrad22, M. Convery32, L. Cooper-Troendle29, J. I. Crespo-Anadón6, R. Cross40, M. Del Tutto12, S. R. Dennis5, P. Detje5, R. Diurba2, Z. Djurcic1, K. Duffy28, S. Dytman29, B. Eberly34, P. Englezos31, A. Ereditato7,12, J. J. Evans21, C. Fang4, W. Foreman14,19, B. T. Fleming7, D. Franco7, A. P. Furmanski25, F. Gao4, D. Garcia-Gamez13, S. Gardiner12, G. Ge10, S. Gollapinni19, E. Gramellini21, P. Green28, H. Greenlee12, L. Gu18, W. Gu3, R. Guenette21, P. Guzowski21, L. Hagaman7, M. D. Handley5, O. Hen22, C. Hilgenberg25, G. A. Horton-Smith17, A. Hussain17, B. Irwin25, M. S. Ismail29, C. James12, X. Ji26, J. H. Jo3, R. A. Johnson8, Y.-J. Jwa10, D. Kalra10, G. Karagiorgi10, W. Ketchum12, M. Kirby3, T. Kobilarcik12, N. Lane15,21, J.-Y. Li11, Y. Li3, K. Lin31, B. R. Littlejohn14, L. Liu12, W. C. Louis19, X. Luo4, T. Mahmud18, C. Mariani39, D. Marsden21, J. Marshall40, N. Martinez17, D. A. Martinez Caicedo33, S. Martynenko3, A. Mastbaum31, I. Mawby18, N. McConkey30, L. Mellet24, J. Mendez20, J. Micallef22,38, A. Mogan9, T. Mohayai16, M. Mooney9, A. F. Moor5, C. D. Moore12, L. Mora Lepin21, M. M. Moudgalya21, S. Mulleriababu2, D. Naples29, A. Navrer-Agasson15,21, N. Nayak3, M. Nebot-Guinot11, C. Nguyen31, J. Nowak18, N. Oza10, O. Palamara12, N. Pallat25, V. Paolone29, A. Papadopoulou1, V. Papavassiliou27, H. B. Parkinson11, S. F. Pate27, N. Patel18, Z. Pavlovic12, E. Piasetzky36, K. Pletcher24, I. Pophale18, X. Qian3, J. L. Raaf12, V. Radeka3, A. Rafique1, M. Reggiani-Guzzo11, J. Rodriguez Rondon33, M. Rosenberg38, M. Ross-Lonergan19, I. Safa10, D. W. Schmitz7, A. Schukraft12, W. Seligman10, M. H. Shaevitz10, R. Sharankova12, J. Shi5, E. L. Snider12, M. Soderberg35, S. Söldner-Rembold15,21, J. Spitz23, M. Stancari12, J. St. John12, T. Strauss12, A. M. Szelc11, N. Taniuchi5, K. Terao32, C. Thorpe21, D. Torbunov3, D. Totani4, M. Toups12, A. Trettin21, Y.-T. Tsai32, J. Tyler17, M. A. Uchida5, T. Usher32, B. Viren3, J. Wang26, M. Weber2, H. Wei20, A. J. White7, S. Wolbers12, T. Wongjirad38, M. Wospakrik12, K. Wresilo5, W. Wu29, E. Yandel4,19, T. Yang12, L. E. Yates12, H. W. Yu3, G. P. Zeller12, J. Zennamo12, and C. Zhang3 (MicroBooNE Collaboration*)

  • 1Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Lemont, Illinois 60439, USA
  • 2Universität Bern, Bern CH-3012, Switzerland
  • 3Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, New York 11973, USA
  • 4University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
  • 5University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, United Kingdom
  • 6Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Madrid E-28040, Spain
  • 7University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
  • 8University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221, USA
  • 9Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, USA
  • 10Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA
  • 11University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3FD, United Kingdom
  • 12Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, Illinois 60510, USA
  • 13Universidad de Granada, Granada E-18071, Spain
  • 14Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Chicago, Illinois 60616, USA
  • 15Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
  • 16Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA
  • 17Kansas State University (KSU), Manhattan, Kansas 66506, USA
  • 18Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YW, United Kingdom
  • 19Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA
  • 20Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803, USA
  • 21The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom
  • 22Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
  • 23University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA
  • 24Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, USA
  • 25University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
  • 26Nankai University, Nankai District, Tianjin 300071, China
  • 27New Mexico State University (NMSU), Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003, USA
  • 28University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RH, United Kingdom
  • 29University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA
  • 30Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom
  • 31Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA
  • 32SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA
  • 33South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSMT), Rapid City, South Dakota 57701, USA
  • 34University of Southern Maine, Portland, Maine 04104, USA
  • 35Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244, USA
  • 36Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, 69978
  • 37University of Texas, Arlington, Texas 76019, USA
  • 38Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts 02155, USA
  • 39Center for Neutrino Physics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA
  • 40University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom

  • *Contact author: microboone_info@fnal.gov
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 081802 – Published 21 August, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/x259-z6mf

Abstract

This Letter presents an investigation of low-energy electron-neutrino interactions in the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam by the MicroBooNE experiment, motivated by the excess of electron-neutrino-like events observed by the MiniBooNE experiment. This is the first measurement to use data from all five years of operation of the MicroBooNE experiment, corresponding to an exposure of 1.11×1021 protons on target, a 70% increase on past results. Two samples of electron neutrino interactions without visible pions are used, one with visible protons and one without any visible protons. The MicroBooNE data show reasonable agreement with the nominal prediction, with p values ≥26.7% when the two νe samples are combined, though the prediction exceeds the data in limited regions of phase space. The data are further compared to two empirical models that modify the predicted rate of electron-neutrino interactions in different variables in the simulation to match the unfolded MiniBooNE low energy excess. In the first model, this unfolding is performed as a function of electron neutrino energy, while the second model aims to match the observed shower energy and angle distributions of the MiniBooNE excess. This measurement excludes an electronlike interpretation of the MiniBooNE excess based on these models at >99%  CLs in all kinematic variables.

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synopsis

Latest Data Rule Out a Leading Explanation of a Neutrino Anomaly

Published 21 August, 2025

The MicroBooNE experiment’s five-year dataset has shown that an unpredicted neutrino-flavor oscillation is not the cause of anomalous results obtained by its predecessor.

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Article Text

Supplemental Material

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Outline

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 081802– Published 21 August, 2025
  • Received 10 January 2025
  • Revised 20 June 2025
  • Accepted 26 June 2025
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