LSND/MiniBooNe excess events and heavy neutrino from {mu} and K decays
- Institute for Nuclear Research, Moscow 117312 (Russian Federation)
It has been recently shown that puzzling excess events observed by the LSND and MiniBooNE neutrino experiments could be interpreted as a signal from the radiative decay of a heavy sterile neutrino ({nu}{sub h}) of the mass from 40 to 80 MeV, with a muonic mixing strength |U{sub {mu}h}|{sup 2{approx_equal}}10{sup -3}-10{sup -2}, and the lifetime 10{sup -11}< or approx. {tau}{sub h} < or approx. 10{sup -9} s. We discuss bounds on |U{sub {mu}h}|{sup 2} obtained from the recent precision measurements with muons and show that they are consistent with the above limits. If the {nu}{sub h} exists its admixture in the ordinary muon or kaon decay would result in the decay chain {mu}{yields}e{nu}{sub e{nu}h{yields}}e{nu}{sub e{gamma}{nu}} or K{yields}{mu}{nu}{sub h{yields}{mu}{gamma}{nu}}, respectively. We propose a new experiment for a sensitive search for these processes in {mu} and K decays at rest allowing to either definitively confirm or exclude the existence of the {nu}{sub h}. To our knowledge, no experiment has specifically searched for the signature of radiative decay of massive neutrinos from particle decays as proposed in this work. The search is complementary to the current experimental efforts to clarify the origin of the LSND and MiniBooNE anomalies.
- OSTI ID:
- 21541583
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Journal Name: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields Journal Issue: 9 Vol. 83; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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