The Not-So-Sterile 4th Neutrino: Constraints on New Gauge Interactions from Neutrino Oscillation Experiments

2014

Sterile neutrino models with new gauge interactions in the sterile sector are phenomenologically interesting since they can lead to novel effects in neutrino oscillation experiments, in cosmology and in dark matter detectors, possibly even explaining some of the observed anomalies in these experiments. Here, we use data from neutrino oscillation experiments, in particular from MiniBooNE, MINOS and solar neutrino experiments, to constrain such models. We focus in particular on the case where the sterile sector gauge boson $A'$ couples also to Standard Model particles (for instance to the baryon number current) and thus induces a large Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein potential. For eV-scale ster…