2025/03/17 by Rodrigues, Ohana Benevides, Matheus Hostert, Kevin J. Kelly +10
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex) #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Neutrino Physics Research #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2503.13594
openalex publication_date 2025/03/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
The sterile neutrino interpretation of the LSND and MiniBooNE neutrino anomalies is currently being tested at three Liquid Argon detectors: MicroBooNE, SBND, and ICARUS. It has been argued that a degeneracy between νμ→ νe and νe → νe oscillations significantly degrades their sensitivity to sterile neutrinos. Through an independent study, we show two methods to eliminate this concern. First, we resolve this degeneracy by including external constraints on νe disappearance from the PROSPECT reactor experiment. Second, by properly analyzing the full three-dimensional parameter space, we demonstrate that the stronger-than-sensitivity exclusion from MicroBooNE alone already covers the entire 2σ preferred regions of MiniBooNE at the level of 2-3σ. We show that upcoming searches at SBND and ICARUS can improve on this beyond the 4σ level, thereby providing a rigorous test of short-baseline anomalies.