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

The MiniBooNE low-energy excess is a longstanding problem which has received further confirmation recently with a reanalysis using newly collected data, with the anomaly now at the \(4.8\sigma\) level. In this letter we propose a novel explanation which advocates a low-energy sector containing \(Z^\...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2018-08
Main Authors: Ballett, Peter, Pascoli, Silvia, Ross-Lonergan, Mark
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bosons
Couplings
Energy industry
Neutral currents
Neutrinos
Showers
Single electrons
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The MiniBooNE low-energy excess is a longstanding problem which has received further confirmation recently with a reanalysis using newly collected data, with the anomaly now at the \(4.8\sigma\) level. In this letter we propose a novel explanation which advocates a low-energy sector containing \(Z^\prime\) bosons with GeV-scale masses and sterile neutrinos with masses around \(100\)-\(500\) MeV. We show that this scenario can provide an excellent spectral agreement with the MiniBooNE low-energy excess in the form of \(Z^\prime\)-mediated neutral current production of heavy sterile states, a fraction of whose subsequent decay to \(e^+e^-\) pairs are misidentified as single electron-like electromagnetic showers. Our model inscribes itself in the broad class of models in which sterile neutrinos are charged under novel interactions, allowing new couplings to hidden-sector physics. Alongside the electron-like MiniBooNE signature this model also predicts a novel, low-background, signal in LArTPC detectors such as MicroBooNE consisting of two distinguishable electron-like electromagnetic showers originating from a single vertex with no associated hadronic activity.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1808.02915