Neutrino Interactions with Matter and the MiniBooNE anomaly

TL;DR

The MiniBooNE anomaly, an excess of electron-like events, challenges current neutrino interaction models, prompting review of experimental backgrounds, interaction physics, and exploration of unconventional mechanisms to resolve the discrepancy.

Contribution

This paper reviews the MiniBooNE anomaly, analyzing neutrino interactions and proposing potential unconventional mechanisms to explain the excess events.

Findings

Identification of key neutrino interaction processes involved

Highlighting the difficulty of reconciling the anomaly with global oscillation data

Discussion of proposed unconventional interaction mechanisms

Abstract

The excess of electron-like events measured by MiniBooNE challenges our understanding of neutrinos and their interactions. We review the status of this open problem and ongoing efforts to resolve it. After introducing the experiment and its results, we consider the main experimental backgrounds and the related physics of neutrino interactions with matter such as quasielastic-like scattering and weak pion production on nucleons and nuclei. Special attention is paid to single photon emission in neutral current interactions and, in particular, its coherent channel. The difficulties to reconcile the MiniBooNE anomaly with global oscillation analysis is then highlighted. We finally outline some of the proposed solutions of the puzzle involving unconventional neutrino-interaction mechanisms.