Physics Letters B (Feb 2024)

Confronting solutions of the Gallium Anomaly with reactor rate data

  • Carlo Giunti,
  • Christoph A. Ternes

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 849
p. 138436

Abstract

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Recently, several models have been suggested to reduce the tension between Gallium and reactor antineutrino spectral ratio data which is found in the framework of 3+1 active-sterile neutrino mixing. Among these models, we consider the extensions of 3+1 mixing with a finite wavepacket size, or the decay of the heaviest neutrino ν4, or the possibility to have a broad ν4 mass distribution. We consider the reactor antineutrino rate data and we show that these models cannot eliminate the tension between Gallium and reactor rate data that is found in the 3+1 neutrino mixing framework. Indeed, we show that the parameter goodness of fit remains small. We consider also a model which explains the Gallium Anomaly with non-standard decoherence in the framework of three-neutrino mixing. We find that it is compatible with the reactor rate data.