Search for light sterile neutrinos with two neutrino beams at MicroBooNE

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Abratenko, P.; Aldana, D. Andrade; Arellano, L.; Asaadi, J.; Ashkenazi, A.; Balasubramanian, S.; Baller, B.; Barnard, A.; Barr, G.; Barrow, D.; Barrow, J.; Basque, V.; Bateman, J.; Rodrigues, O. Benevides; Berkman, S.; Bhat, A.; Bhattacharya, M.; Bishai, M.; Blake, A.; Bogart, B.; Bolton, T.; Brunetti, M. B.; Camilleri, L.; Caratelli, D.; Cavanna, F.; Cerati, G.; Chappell, A.; Chen, Y.; Conrad, J. M.; Convery, M.; Cooper-Troendle, L.; Crespo-Anadon, J. I.; Cross, R.; Del Tutto, M.; Dennis, S. R.; Detje, P.; Diurba, R.; Djurcic, Z.; Duffy, K.; Dytman, S.; Eberly, B.; Englezos, P.; Ereditato, A.; Evans, J. J.; Fang, C.; Fleming, B. T.; Foreman, W.; Franco, D.; Furmanski, A. P.; Gao, F.; Garcia-Gamez, D.; Gardiner, S.; Ge, G.; Gollapinni, S.; Gramellini, E.; Green, P.; Greenlee, H.; Gu, L.; Gu, W.; Guenette, R.; Guzowski, P.; Hagaman, L.; Handley, M. D.; Hen, O.; Hilgenberg, C.; Horton-Smith, G. A.; Hussain, A.; Irwin, B.; Ismail, M. S.; James, C.; Ji, X.; Jo, J. H.; Johnson, R. A.; Jwa, Y. -J.; Kalra, D.; Karagiorgi, G.; Ketchum, W.; Kirby, M.; Kobilarcik, T.; Lane, N.; Li, J. -Y.; Li, Y.; Lin, K.; Littlejohn, B. R.; Liu, L.; Louis, W. C.; Luo, X.; Mahmud, T.; Mariani, C.; Marsden, D.; Marshall, J.; Martinez, N.; Caicedo, D. A. Martinez; Martynenko, S.; Mastbaum, A.; Mawby, I.; McConkey, N.; Mellet, L.; Mendez, J.; Micallef, J.; Mogan, A.; Mohayai, T.; Mooney, M.; Moor, A. F.; Moore, C. D.; Lepin, L. Mora; Moudgalya, M. M.; Mulleriababu, S.; Naples, D.; Navrer-Agasson, A.; Nayak, N.; Nebot-Guinot, M.; Nguyen, C.; Nowak, J.; Oza, N.; Palamara, O.; Pallat, N.; Paolone, V.; Papadopoulou, A.; Papavassiliou, V.; Parkinson, H. B.; Pate, S. F.; Patel, N.; Pavlovic, Z.; Piasetzky, E.; Pletcher, K.; Pophale, I.; Qian, X.; Raaf, J. L.; Radeka, V.; Rafique, A.; Reggiani-Guzzo, M.; Rondon, J. Rodriguez; Rosenberg, M.; Ross-Lonergan, M.; Safa, I.; Schmitz, D. W.; Schukraft, A.; Seligman, W.; Shaevitz, M. H.; Sharankova, R.; Shi, J.; Snider, E. L.; Soderberg, M.; Soldner-Rembold, S.; Spitz, J.; Stancari, M.; St John, J.; Strauss, T.; Szelc, A. M.; Taniuchi, N.; Terao, K.; Thorpe, C.; Torbunov, D.; Totani, D.; Toups, M.; Trettin, A.; Tsai, Y. -T.; Tyler, J.; Uchida, M. A.; Usher, T.; Viren, B.; Wang, J.; Weber, M.; Wei, H.; White, A. J.; Wolbers, S.; Wongjirad, T.; Wresilo, K.; Wu, W.; Yandel, E.; Yang, T.; Yates, L. E.; Yu, H. W.; Zeller, G. P.; Zennamo, J.; Zhang, C.
• 署名单位: Tufts University; Illinois Institute of Technology; University of Manchester; University of Texas System; University of Texas Arlington; Tel Aviv University; United States Department of Energy (DOE); University of Chicago; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; University of Oxford; University of Minnesota System; University of Minnesota Twin Cities; Imperial College London; Michigan State University; University of Chicago; United States Department of Energy (DOE); Brookhaven National Laboratory; Lancaster University; University of Michigan System; University of Michigan; Kansas State University; University of Kansas; University of Warwick; Columbia University; University of California System; University of California Santa Barbara; United States Department of Energy (DOE); Stanford University; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); University of Pittsburgh; Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales Tecnologicas; University of Cambridge; University of Bern; United States Department of Energy (DOE); Argonne National Laboratory; University of Maine System; University of Southern Maine; Rutgers University System; Rutgers University New Brunswick; United States Department of Energy (DOE); Los Alamos National Laboratory; University of Granada; Nankai University; University System of Ohio; University of Cincinnati; University of Edinburgh; Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University; University of London; Queen Mary University London; University College London; Louisiana State University System; Louisiana State University; Colorado State University System; Colorado State University Fort Collins; Indiana University System; Indiana University Bloomington; New Mexico State University; Syracuse University
• 刊物名称: NATURE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0028-0836; 1476-4687
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09757-7
• 发表日期: 2025-12-04
• 页码: 64-+
• 关键词: oscillation; PROTONS; PIONS; MODEL

摘要

The existence of three distinct neutrino flavours, nu(e), nu(mu) and nu(t), is a central tenet of the Standard Model of particle physics(1,2). Quantum-mechanical interference can allow a neutrino of one initial flavour to be detected sometime later as a different flavour, a process called neutrinooscillation. Several anomalous observations inconsistent with this three-flavour picture have motivated the hypothesis that an additional neutrino state exists, which does not interact directly with matter, termed as 'sterile' neutrino, nu(s) (refs. 3-9). This includes anomalous observations from the Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector (LSND)(3) experiment and Mini-Booster Neutrino Experiment (MiniBooNE)(4,5), consistent with nu(mu) -> nu(e) transitions at a distance inconsistent with the three-neutrino picture. Here we use data obtainedfrom the MicroBooNE liquid-argon time projection chamber10 in two accelerator neutrino beams to exclude the single light sterile neutrino interpretation of the LSND and MiniBooNE anomalies at the 95% confidence level (CL). Moreover, we ruleout a notable portion of the parameter space that could explain the gallium anomaly(6-8). This is one of the first measurements to use two accelerator neutrino beams to break a degeneracybetween.e appearance and disappearance, which would otherwise weaken the sensitivity to the sterileneutrino hypothesis. Wefind noevidence for either nu(mu) -> nu(e) flavour transitions or.e disappearance that would indicate nonstandard flavour oscillations. Our results indicate that previous anomalous observations consistent with nu(mu) -> nu(e) transitions cannotbe explained by introducing a single sterile neutrino state.