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 $E_\nu^{-r}$ 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.