Light sterile neutrinos have been motivated by anomalies observed in short-baseline neutrino experiments. Among them, radioactive-source and reactor experiments have provided evidence and constraints, respectively, for electron-neutrino disappearance compatible with an eV-scale neutrino. These seemingly conflicting results have been derived under the approximation that the neutrino wave package can be approximated as a plane wave. This letter demonstrates that when the neutrino wave package is taken into account, the tension between the different electron-flavor observations and constraints are resolved. Based on this study, in the future all results should be presented with zero and maximal wavepacket effects, since the true value must lie in between.
Recently, the ANITA collaboration announced the detection of new, unsettling upgoing Ultra-High-Energy (UHE) events. Understanding their origin is pressing to ensure success of the incoming UHE neutrino program. In this work, we study their internal consistency and the implications of the lack of similar events in IceCube. We introduce a generic, simple parametrization to study the compatibility between these two observatories in Standard Model-like and Beyond Standard Model scenarios: an incoming flux of particles that interact with Earth nucleons with cross section σ, producing particle showers along with long-lived particles that decay with lifetime τ and generate a shower that explains ANITA observations. We find that the ANITA angular distribution imposes significant constraints, and when including null observations from IceCube only τ ~ 10−3–10−2 s and σ ~ 10−33– 10−32 cm2 can explain the data. This hypothesis is testable with future IceCube data. Finally, we discuss a specific model that can realize this scenario. Our analysis highlights the importance of simultaneous observations by high-energy optical neutrino telescopes and new UHE radio detectors to uncover cosmogenic neutrinos or discover new physics.
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