Leptoquark solution for both the flavor and ANITA anomalies

Abstract

The ANITA experiment has seen anomalous Earth emergent showers of EeV energies which cannot be explained with Standard Model interactions. In addition, tests of lepton flavor universality in 𝑅⁡(𝐷(*)) and 𝑅⁡(𝐾(*)) have shown significant deviations from theoretical predictions. It is known that, among single leptoquark solutions, only the chiral vector leptoquark 𝑈1∼(𝟑,𝟏,2/3) can simultaneously address the discrepancies. In this paper, we show that the leptoquark motivated by flavor anomalies coupled to a sterile neutrino can also explain the ANITA anomalous events. We consider two scenarios, (a) the sterile neutrino, produced via resonant leptoquark mediated neutrino-nucleon interactions, propagates through the Earth without significant attenuation and decays near the surface to a 𝜏 lepton; and (b) a cosmogenic sterile neutrino interacts with the matter near the surface of Earth and generates a 𝜏 lepton. These two scenarios give significantly large survival probabilities even when regeneration effects are not taken into account. In the second scenario, the distribution of emergent tau energy peaks in the same energy range as seen by ANITA.