MiniBooNE and Sterile Neutrinos

TL;DR

The paper discusses the potential role of sterile neutrinos in extending the standard model, focusing on the MiniBooNE experiment's efforts to detect their oscillations in a specific mass-squared difference range, and explores future research directions.

Contribution

It provides an overview of sterile neutrino models, details the MiniBooNE experiment's setup and status, and discusses future investigations if oscillation signals are observed.

Findings

MiniBooNE aims to test sterile neutrino oscillations in the 0.3 to a few eV^2 range.

The experiment's results could confirm or refute the LSND anomaly.

Future experiments are considered if MiniBooNE detects oscillations.

Abstract

Sterile neutrinos may be an important extension to the standard model, and could both hold the key to understanding neutrino mass and mixing as well as play an important role in leptogenesis. In many models, the sterile neutrinos could be light and accessible to current and near term experiments. The MiniBooNE experiment is set up to explore these possibilities in the $\Delta m^{2}$ region from 0.3 to a few eV$^{2}$ where the LSND experiment has reported a $\bar{\nu}_{e}$ appearance signal. This report will outline some of these extensions, give the status and prospects for the MiniBooNE experiment, and explore future investigations if MiniBooNE sees an oscillation signal.