A decoherence explanation of the gallium neutrino anomaly

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}Eν−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.