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U(1) ′ mediated decays of heavy sterile neutrinos in MiniBooNE

Ballett, Peter; Pascoli, Silvia; Ross-Lonergan, Mark

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Authors

Peter Ballett

Mark Ross-Lonergan



Abstract

The MiniBooNE low-energy excess is a long-standing problem which has received further confirmation with a reanalysis using newly collected data, with the anomaly now at the 4.8σ level. In this paper we propose a novel explanation which advocates a low-energy sector containing Z0 bosons with GeV-scale masses and sterile neutrinos with masses around 100–500 MeV. We show that this scenario provides excellent spectral agreement with the MiniBooNE low-energy excess in the form of Z0 -mediated neutral current production of heavy sterile states, a fraction of whose subsequent decay to eþe− pairs are misidentified as single electronlike electromagnetic showers. Our model inscribes itself in the broad class of models in which sterile neutrinos are charged under new interactions, allowing new couplings to hiddensector physics. Alongside the electronlike MiniBooNE signature this model also predicts a novel, lowbackground, signal in LArTPC detectors such as MicroBooNE consisting of two distinguishable electronlike electromagnetic showers originating from a single vertex.

Citation

Ballett, P., Pascoli, S., & Ross-Lonergan, M. (2019). U(1) ′ mediated decays of heavy sterile neutrinos in MiniBooNE. Physical Review D, 99(7), Article 071701(R). https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.99.071701

Journal Article Type Article
Online Publication Date Apr 10, 2019
Publication Date Apr 1, 2019
Deposit Date Apr 12, 2019
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Physical Review D
Print ISSN 2470-0010
Electronic ISSN 2470-0029
Publisher American Physical Society
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 99
Issue 7
Article Number 071701(R)
DOI https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.99.071701

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
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.





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