Can lepton flavor violating interactions explain the atmospheric neutrino problem?

We investigate whether flavor changing neutrino interactions (FCNIs) can be sufficiently large to provide a viable solution to the atmospheric neutrino problem. Effective operators induced by heavy boson exchange that allow for flavor changing neutrino scattering off quarks or electrons are related by an SU(2)_L rotation to operators that induce anomalous tau decays. Since SU(2)_L violation is small for new physics at or above the weak scale, one can use the upper bounds on lepton flavor violating tau decays or on lepton universality violation to put severe, model-independent bounds on the relevant non-standard neutrino interactions. Also Z-induced flavor changing neutral currents, due to heavy singlet neutrinos, are too small to be relevant for the atmospheric neutrino anomaly. We conclude that the FCNI solution to the atmospheric neutrino problem is ruled out.