The Not-So-Sterile 4th Neutrino: Constraints on New Gauge Interactions from Neutrino Oscillation Experiments

TL;DR

This paper constrains models with sterile neutrinos and new gauge interactions using neutrino oscillation data, limiting the strength of such interactions and impacting interpretations of experimental anomalies.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive constraints on sterile neutrino models with gauge interactions coupling to Standard Model particles, especially from MINOS data.

Findings

Strong constraints on gauge interaction strength, less than ~10 times the weak interaction.

Rules out gauge forces large enough to influence MiniBooNE short baseline results.

Imposes limits on sterile neutrino scattering signals in dark matter detectors.

Abstract

Sterile neutrino models with new gauge interactions in the sterile sector are phenomenologically interesting since they can lead to novel effects in neutrino oscillation experiments, in cosmology and in dark matter detectors, possibly even explaining some of the observed anomalies in these experiments. Here, we use data from neutrino oscillation experiments, in particular from MiniBooNE, MINOS and solar neutrino experiments, to constrain such models. We focus in particular on the case where the sterile sector gauge boson $A'$ couples also to Standard Model particles (for instance to the baryon number current) and thus induces a large Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein potential. For eV-scale sterile neutrinos, we obtain strong constraints especially from MINOS, which restricts the strength of the new interaction to be less than $\sim 10$ times that of the Standard Model weak interaction unless active-sterile neutrino mixing is very small ($\sin^2 \theta_{24} \lesssim 10^{-3}$). This rules out gauge forces large enough to affect short baseline experiments like MiniBooNE and it imposes nontrivial constraints on signals from sterile neutrino scattering in dark matter experiments.