"Neutrino Anomalies and New Physics: Recent Insights from MicroBooNE"
Abstract: Our knowledge and understanding of the neutrino has emerged from a century of discoveries, often inspired by anomalous observations that gradually grew into the established “three-neutrino paradigm” we have today. Despite this success, unresolved puzzles persist. Among these, the short-baseline neutrino anomalies have notably resisted explanation, despite sustained and significant global effort. If confirmed, these anomalies strongly hint at exciting new physics beyond the Standard Model. In this colloquium, I will present an overview of these anomalies as the motivation behind the ongoing Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) Program at Fermilab. I will showcase the latest results from one of the three SBN detectors, the MicroBooNE experiment, that targets neutrino-induced single-photon production as the origin of the anomalies, through a series of three inclusive and exclusive searches.
Lastly, I will explore the rapidly developing field where neutrino experiments serve as portals into hypothetical "dark sectors." I will highlight recent results from the world’s first search for a dark-sector e⁺e⁻ pair-production explanation of the short-baseline neutrino anomalies, the first of many searches in this growing direction in neutrino physics. .