Bulk Neutrinos as an Alternative Cause of the Gallium and Reactor Anti-neutrino Anomalies

Abstract

We consider an alternative explanation for the deficit of nu_e in Ga solar neutrino calibration experiments and of the anti nu_e in short baseline reactor experiments by a model where neutrinos can oscillate into sterile Kaluza-Klein modes that can propagate in compactified sub-micrometer flat extra dimensions. We have analyzed the results of the Gallium radioactive source experiments and 19 reactor experiments with baseline shorter than 100 m, and showed that these data can be fitted into this scenario. The values of the lightest neutrino mass and of the size of the largest extra dimension that are compatible with these experiments are mostly not excluded by other neutrino oscillation experiments.

Comments: matches PRD version, title changed, 7 pages, 2 figures