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Paper   IPM / P / 17316
School of Physics
  Title:   A decoherence explanation of the gallium neutrino anomaly
  Author(s): 
1.  Y. Farzan
2.  T. Schwetz
  Status:   Published
  Journal: SciPost Phys.
  No.:  4
  Vol.:  15
  Year:  2023
  Pages:   172
  Supported by:  IPM
  Abstract:
Gallium radioactive source experiments have reported a neutrino-induced event rate about 20\% lower than expected with a high statistical significance. We present an explanation of this observation assuming quantum decoherence of the neutrinos in the gallium detectors at a scale of 2~m. This explanation is consistent with global data on neutrino oscillations, including solar neutrinos, if decoherence effects decrease quickly with energy, for instance with a power law $E_\nu^{-r}$ with $r\simeq 12$. Our proposal does not require the presence of sterile neutrinos but implies a modification of the standard quantum mechanical evolution equations for active neutrinos.

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