Could inert neutrinos be dark neutrinos in the TGD sense?

I learned about new-to-me anomaly related to nuclear physics and possible neutrino physics (see this). The so called Ga-anomaly is actuallt a well-known but has escaped my attention. Baksan Experiment on Sterile Transitions (BEST) studies the nuclear reaction ν_e+⁷¹Ga→ e⁺+⁷¹Ga in which an electronic neutrino produced in the beta decay of ⁵¹Cr. The reaction rate has been found to be about 20-24 per cent lower than predicted.

Unfortunately, the articles by Barinov et al published in Phys Rev Letters and Phys Rev C of the experiment, can be found from arXiv (see this and this). A thorough discussion of standard nuclear physics predictions for the reaction rate of the reaction can be found in the article “The gallium anomaly revisited” by Kostensalo et al (see this).

Gallium anomaly is reported to be consistent with the sterile neutrino explanation stating that part of the electron neutrinos from the beta decay of ⁵¹Cr transform to their sterile counterparts so that the reaction rate is reduced.

The recent Micro-Boone experiment (see this) however seems to exclude intert/sterile neutrinos. I have proposed a possible solution to the findings of Micro-Boone experiment demonstraring that a channel in which there is no proton from which electron neutrino could scatter shows scattering (see this). The strange scattering in 0-proton channel would take place from a proton which is dark in the sense that it has non-standard value of effective Planck constant h_eff=nh₀ and having a number theoretic origin in the TGD framework. Note that darkness means that the particles with the same value of h_eff appear in the vertices of scattering diagrams. Dark and ordinary particles can however transform to each other in 2-vertex and this corresponds to mixing.

The anomaly associated with the neutron life-time is another anomaly, which dark proton hypothesis explains (see this). The two methods used to determine the lifetime of neutron give different results. The first method measures the number of protons emerging to the beam in neutron decays. Second method measures the number of neutrons. The TGD explanation of the anomaly is that part of the neutron decays gives rise to dark proton, which remains unobserved in the first method. Second method detects the reduction of the intensity of the neutron beam and is unsensitive to the what happens to the proton so that the measurements give slightly different results.

This finding inspires the question whether the inert neutrinos be dark neutrinos in TGD sense and therefore have h_eff>h? Could the mixing of neutrinos with their dark variants take place in the ⁷¹Ga experiment? Dark electron neutrinos are dark would not interact with ⁷¹Ga target since neutrons inside the ⁷¹Ga nuclei are expected to be ordinary so that the ν_e+n→ p+e^- scattering rate would be lower. Dark neutrinos would interact only with dark neutrons, which are however absent from the ⁷¹Ga target.

Can this picture consistent with the Micro-Boone anomaly? In this case, the incoming neutrinos interact with the target as if they were all ordinary neutrinos but there is an anomalous interaction of dark protons with the dark part of the neutrino beam with target. This would however reduce the scattering rate for the other, ordinary channels. Can this consistent with the Micro-Boone experiment?

What is reported is following. Several channels denoted by 1eNpMπ where N=0,1 is the number of protons and M=0,1 is the number of pions were studied. Also the channel 1eX, where “X” denotes all possible final states was studied. It turned out that the rate for the production of electrons is below or consistent with the predictions for channels 1e1p, 1eNp0π and 1eX. Only one channel was an exception and corresponds to 1e0p0π. It therefore seems that the identification of inert neutrino as dark neutrino in TGD sense could work.

See the article Neutrinos and TGD or the chapter TGD as it is towards end of 2021.

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

Articles related to TGD