Speaker
Description
The Standard Model of particle physics posits the existence of three distinct neutrino flavors. Several anomalous observations inconsistent with the three flavor Standard Model neutrino oscillations have motivated the hypothesis that there exists at least one additional neutrino state, termed the ‘sterile neutrino’ that does not interact directly with matter. Among these anomalies, LSND and MiniBooNE report observations of $\nu_{\mu} \rightarrow \nu_{e}$ transitions at a distance inconsistent with the three neutrino model. MicroBooNE is a liquid-argon time projection chamber detector located at Fermilab. Using data from two accelerator neutrino beams, MicroBooNE has excluded the single light sterile neutrino interpretation of LSND and MiniBooNE anomalies at 95% confidence level. The use of two neutrino beams allows a single detector to overcome the degeneracy of the disappearance oscillation effect to report the most stringent sensitivity in the $\nu_{\mu} \rightarrow \nu_{e}$ appearance channel. Finding no evidence for non-standard flavor oscillations, we now turn to alternative sterile neutrino models that could explain the previous anomalous observations.