A critical appraisal of the LSND anomaly
Abstract
The so-called 'LSND anomaly', a 3.8 sigma excess of anti-nue events interpreted as originating from anti-numu -> anti-nue oscillation, gave rise to many theoretical speculations. The MiniBooNE Collaboration reported inconsistency of this interpretation with the findings from their search for numu -> nue oscillations. Yet the origin of the LSND anomaly was never clarified. A critical issue is the prediction of the background anti-nue flux that was used in the analysis of the LSND experiment. For this, decisive input comes from pion spectra measured with the HARP large-angle spectrometer under conditions that closely resemble the LSND situation: a proton beam with 800 MeV kinetic energy hitting a water target.
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