Review of sterile neutrino searches at very short-baseline reactor experiments

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent experimental efforts and results in the search for sterile neutrinos at very short-baseline reactor experiments, highlighting both significant findings and ongoing controversies in the field.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of current experimental hints, recent key results, and future prospects for sterile neutrino searches at reactor experiments.

Findings

Hints of eV-scale sterile neutrinos from multiple experiments

Recent significant results from BEST, MicroBooNE, and Neutrino-4

Ongoing controversies and future prospects in the field

Abstract

Search for New Physics beyond the Standard Model is the main direction in particle physics nowadays. There are several experimental hints of New Physics. The most statistically significant (5-6$\sigma$) are the hints of eV mass scale sterile neutrinos. They come from antineutrino disappearance in reactor experiments, $\nu_e$ disappearance in experiments with very powerful radioactive sources, and electron (anti)neutrino appearance in the muon (anti)neutrino beams. Very important results in this field were obtained in 2021 by the BEST, MicroBooNE, and Neutrino-4 collaborations as well as by several other experiments. However, the situation is still or maybe even more controversial. We review these indications of New Physics and prospects for the next few years with the emphasis on reactor experiments.