Dark Neutrino Portal to Explain MiniBooNE excess

TL;DR

This paper proposes a new dark sector model involving dark neutrinos and gauge bosons to explain the excess of electron-like events observed in the MiniBooNE experiment, fitting the data well.

Contribution

It introduces a novel dark neutrino portal framework with specific particle masses that accounts for MiniBooNE excesses, advancing dark sector physics models.

Findings

Provides a good fit to MiniBooNE energy spectra

Explains angular distribution of events

Suggests a new dark sector particle interaction mechanism

Abstract

We present a novel framework that provides an explanation to the long-standing excess of electron-like events in the MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab. We suggest a new dark sector containing a dark neutrino and a dark gauge boson, both with masses between a few tens and a few hundreds of MeV. Dark neutrinos are produced via neutrino-nucleus scattering, followed by their decay to the dark gauge boson, which in turn gives rise to electron-like events. This mechanism provides an excellent fit to MiniBooNE energy spectra and angular distributions.