Toward a Robust Confirmation or Refutation of the Sterile-Neutrino Explanation of Short-Baseline Anomalies

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.

arXiv: 2503.13594
DOI: 10.1103/4fn7-svnh
Report Numbers: FERMILAB-PUB-25-0098-T, MI-HET-852

Recommended citation: Ohana Benevides Rodrigues, Matheus Hostert, Kevin J. Kelly, Bryce Littlejohn, Pedro A.N. Machado, et al. (2025). "Toward a Robust Confirmation or Refutation of the Sterile-Neutrino Explanation of Short-Baseline Anomalies." Phys.Rev.Lett. 135 (2025) 8, 081801.
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