Observation of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering
Abstract
The coherent elastic scattering of neutrinos off nuclei has eluded detection for four decades, even though its predicted cross-section is the largest by far of all low-energy neutrino couplings. This mode of interaction provides new opportunities to study neutrino properties, and leads to a miniaturization of detector size, with potential technological applications. We observe this process at a 6.7-sigma confidence level, using a low-background, 14.6-kg CsI[Na] scintillator exposed to the neutrino emissions from the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Characteristic signatures in energy and time, predicted by the Standard Model for this process, are observed in high signal-to-background conditions. Improved constraints on non-standard neutrino interactions with quarks are derived from this initial dataset.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1708.01294,
title = {Observation of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering},
author = {D. Akimov and J. B. Albert and P. An and C. Awe and P. S. Barbeau and B. Becker and V. Belov and A. Brown and A. Bolozdynya and B. Cabrera-Palmer and M. Cervantes and J. I. Collar and R. J. Cooper and R. L. Cooper and C. Cuesta and D. J. Dean and J. A. Detwiler and A. Eberhardt and Y. Efremenko and S. R. Elliott and E. M. Erkela and L. Fabris and M. Febbraro and N. E. Fields and W. Fox and Z. Fu and A. Galindo-Uribarri and M. P. Green and M. Hai and M. R. Heath and S. Hedges and D. Hornback and T. W. Hossbach and E. B. Iverson and L. J. Kaufman and S. Ki and S. R. Klein and A. Khromov and A. Konovalov and M. Kremer and A. Kumpan and C. Leadbetter and L. Li and W. Lu and K. Mann and D. M. Markoff and K. Miller and H. Moreno and P. E. Mueller and J. Newby and J. L. Orrell and C. T. Overman and D. S. Parno and S. Penttila and G. Perumpilly and H. Ray and J. Raybern and D. Reyna and G. C. Rich and D. Rimal and D. Rudik and K. Scholberg and B. J. Scholz and G. Sinev and W. M. Snow and V. Sosnovtsev and A. Shakirov and S. Suchyta and B. Suh and R. Tayloe and R. T. Thornton and I. Tolstukhin and J. Vanderwerp and R. L. Varner and C. J. Virtue and Z. Wan and J. Yoo and C. -H. Yu and A. Zawada and J. Zettlemoyer and A. M. Zderic},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1708.01294},
year = {2017}
}