Broad sterile neutrinos & the reactor/gallium tension - Texas A&M University (TAMU) Scholar

Abstract Significant evidence exists for the apparent disappearance of electron-type neutrinos in radioactive source experiments. Yet, interpreted within the standard 3+1 sterile neutrino scenario, precision short-baseline measurements of electron antineutrinos from nuclear reactors strongly disagree with these results. Recently, it has been demonstrated that allowing for a finite wavepacket size for the reactor neutrinos can ameliorate such a tension, however the smallness of the required wavepackets is a subject of intense debate. In this work, we demonstrate that a broad sterile neutrino may relax this tension in much the same way. Such a phenomenological possibility can arise in plausible hidden sector scenarios, such as a clockwork-style sector, for which we provide a concrete microscopic model.

Broad sterile neutrinos & the reactor/gallium tension Academic Article