Testing New Physics Explanations of the MiniBooNE Anomaly at Neutrino Scattering Experiments

Abstract

Heavy neutrinos with additional interactions have recently been proposed as an explanation to the MiniBooNE excess. These scenarios often rely on marginally boosted particles to explain the excess angular spectrum, thus predicting large rates at higher-energy neutrino-electron scattering experiments. We place new constraints on this class of models based on neutrino-electron scattering sideband measurements performed at MINERνA and CHARM-II. A simultaneous explanation of the angular and energy distributions of the MiniBooNE excess in terms of heavy neutrinos with light mediators is severely constrained by our analysis. In general, high-energy neutrino-electron scattering experiments provide strong constraints on explanations of the MiniBooNE observation involving light mediators.