MiniBooNE Anomaly and Heavy Neutrino Decay
- Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 117312 (Russian Federation)
The anomaly in the low-energy distribution of quasielastic neutrino events reported by the MiniBooNE Collaboration is discussed. We show that the observed excess of electronlike events could originate from the production and decay of a heavy neutrino ({nu}{sub h}) in the MiniBooNE detector. The {nu}{sub h} with the mass around 500 MeV is created by mixing in {nu}{sub {mu}} neutral-current interactions and decays radiatively into nugamma with the lifetime {tau}{sub {nu}}{sub h} < or approx. 10{sup -9} s due to a transition magnetic moment between the {nu}{sub h} and a light neutrino {nu}. Existing experimental data are found to be consistent with a mixing strength between the {nu}{sub h} and the {nu}{sub {mu}} of |U{sub {mu}}{sub h}|{sup 2}approx =(1-4)x10{sup -3} and a {nu}{sub h} transition magnetic moment of {mu}{sub tr}{approx_equal}(1-6)x10{sup -9}{mu}{sub B}. Finally, we discuss the reason why no significant excess of low-energy events has been observed in the recent antineutrino data.
- OSTI ID:
- 21370891
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 24 Vol. 103; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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