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Improved eV-scale Sterile-Neutrino Constraints from the Second KATRIN Measurement Campaign

We present the results of the light sterile neutrino search from the second KATRIN measurement campaign in 2019. Approaching nominal activity, $3.76 \times 10^6$ tritium $β$-electrons are analyzed in an energy window extending down to $40\,$eV below the tritium endpoint at $E_0 = 18.57\,$keV. We consider the $3ν+1$ framework with three active and one sterile neutrino flavor. The analysis is sensitive to a fourth mass eigenstate $m_4^2\lesssim1600\,$eV$^2$ and active-to-sterile mixing $|U_{e4}|^2 \gtrsim 6 \times 10^{-3}$. As no sterile-neutrino signal was observed, we provide improved exclusion contours on $m_4^2$ and $|U_{e4}|^2$ at $95\,$% C.L. Our results supersede the limits from the Mainz and Troitsk experiments. Furthermore, we are able to exclude the large $Δm_{41}^2$ solutions of the reactor antineutrino and gallium anomalies to a great extent. The latter has recently been reaffirmed by the BEST collaboration and could be explained by a sterile neutrino with large mixing. While the remaining solutions at small $Δm_{41}^2$ are mostly excluded by short-baseline reactor experiments, KATRIN is the only ongoing laboratory experiment to be sensitive to relevant solutions at large $Δm_{41}^2$ through a robust spectral shape analysis.