Challenging Spontaneous Quantum Collapse with XENONnT
Abstract
We report on the search for X-ray radiation as predicted from dynamical quantum collapse with low-energy electronic recoil data in the energy range of 1-140 keV from the first science run of the XENONnT dark matter detector. Spontaneous radiation is an unavoidable effect of dynamical collapse models, which were introduced as a possible solution to the long-standing measurement problem in quantum mechanics. The analysis utilizes a model that for the first time accounts for cancellation effects in the emitted spectrum, which arise in the X-ray range due to the opposing electron-proton charges in xenon atoms. New world-leading limits on the free parameters of the Markovian continuous spontaneous localization and Di\'osi-Penrose models are set, improving previous best constraints by two orders of magnitude and a factor of five, respectively. The original values proposed for the strength and the correlation length of the continuous spontaneous localization model are excluded experimentally for the first time.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2506.05507,
title = {Challenging Spontaneous Quantum Collapse with XENONnT},
author = {E. Aprile and J. Aalbers and K. Abe and S. Ahmed Maouloud and L. Althueser and B. Andrieu and E. Angelino and D. Antón Martin and S. R. Armbruster and F. Arneodo and L. Baudis and M. Bazyk and L. Bellagamba and R. Biondi and A. Bismark and K. Boese and A. Brown and G. Bruno and R. Budnik and C. Cai and C. Capelli and J. M. R. Cardoso and A. P. Cimental Chávez and A. P. Colijn and J. Conrad and J. J. Cuenca-García and C. Curceanu and V. D'Andrea and L. C. Daniel Garcia and M. P. Decowski and A. Deisting and C. Di Donato and P. Di Gangi and S. Diglio and K. Eitel and S. el Morabit and A. Elykov and A. D. Ferella and C. Ferrari and H. Fischer and T. Flehmke and M. Flierman and W. Fulgione and C. Fuselli and P. Gaemers and R. Gaior and F. Gao and S. Ghosh and R. Giacomobono and F. Girard and R. Glade-Beucke and L. Grandi and J. Grigat and H. Guan and M. Guida and P. Gyorgy and R. Hammann and A. Higuera and C. Hils and L. Hoetzsch and N. F. Hood and M. Iacovacci and Y. Itow and J. Jakob and F. Joerg and Y. Kaminaga and M. Kara and P. Kavrigin and S. Kazama and P. Kharbanda and M. Kobayashi and D. Koke and A. Kopec and H. Landsman and R. F. Lang and L. Levinson and I. Li and S. Li and S. Liang and Z. Liang and Y. -T. Lin and S. Lindemann and K. Liu and M. Liu and J. Loizeau and F. Lombardi and J. Long and J. A. M. Lopes and G. M. Lucchetti and T. Luce and Y. Ma and C. Macolino and J. Mahlstedt and A. Mancuso and L. Manenti and S. Manti and F. Marignetti and T. Marrodán Undagoitia and K. Martens and J. Masbou and S. Mastroianni and A. Melchiorre and J. Merz and M. Messina and A. Michael and K. Miuchi and A. Molinario and S. Moriyama and K. Morå and Y. Mosbacher and M. Murra and J. Müller and K. Ni and U. Oberlack and B. Paetsch and Y. Pan and Q. Pellegrini and R. Peres and C. Peters and J. Pienaar and M. Pierre and K. Piscicchia and G. Plante and T. R. Pollmann and L. Principe and J. Qi and J. Qin and D. Ramírez García and M. Rajado and A. Ravindran and A. Razeto and L. Redard-Jacot and R. Singh and L. Sanchez and J. M. F. dos Santos and I. Sarnoff and G. Sartorelli and J. Schreiner and P. Schulte and H. Schulze Eißing and M. Schumann and L. Scotto Lavina and M. Selvi and F. Semeria and P. Shagin and S. Shi and J. Shi and M. Silva and H. Simgen and A. Stevens and C. Szyszka and A. Takeda and Y. Takeuchi and P. -L. Tan and D. Thers and G. Trinchero and C. D. Tunnell and F. Tönnies and K. Valerius and S. Vecchi and S. Vetter and F. I. Villazon Solar and G. Volta and C. Weinheimer and M. Weiss and D. Wenz and C. Wittweg and V. H. S. Wu and Y. Xing and D. Xu and Z. Xu and M. Yamashita and L. Yang and J. Ye and L. Yuan and G. Zavattini and M. Zhong},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.05507},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
7 pages, 3 figures