Revisiting PS191 limits on sterile neutrinos

TL;DR

This paper reevaluates the sterile neutrino limits from the PS191 experiment, showing that previous bounds were overestimated and are now outdated due to more recent experimental results.

Contribution

It provides a revised analysis of PS191 data using Monte Carlo simulations, demonstrating that its bounds are weaker than previously claimed and surpassed by newer experiments.

Findings

PS191 bounds are significantly lower than originally published.

Recent experiments like T2K, NA62, E949, TRIUMF, and PIENU have surpassed PS191 limits.

Original PS191 bounds are now considered obsolete.

Abstract

We perform Monte Carlo simulations of the sterile neutrino signal at the fixed target experiment PS191 operated on a proton beam of 19.2\,GeV at CERN in the eighties. We find that the strongest bounds the PS191 could obtain are significantly lower than what they published, and now are obsolete being surpassed by recent T2K, NA62, E949, TRIUMF and PIENU experiments.