Combining dark matter detectors and electron-capture sources to hunt for new physics in the neutrino sector

Abstract

In this letter we point out the possibility to study new physics in the neutrino sector using dark matter detectors based on liquid xenon. These are characterized by very good spatial resolution and extremely low thresholds for electron recoil energies. When combined with a radioactive ${\nu }_e$ source, both features in combination allow for a very competitive sensitivity to neutrino magnetic moments and sterile neutrino oscillations. We find that, for realistic values of detector size and source strength, the bound on the neutrino magnetic moment can be improved by an order of magnitude with respect to the present value. Regarding sterile neutrino searches, we find that most of the gallium anomaly could be explored at the 95% confidence level just using shape information.

arXiv comment5 pages, 2 figures. Minor modifications, references added. Version accepted for publication in JHEP

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Cited by in corpus (16)

• A Next-Generation Liquid Xenon Observatory for Dark Matter and Neutrino Physics
• Electromagnetic neutrinos in laboratory experiments and astrophysics
• Non-standard neutrino interactions and low energy experiments
• Low-energy probes of sterile neutrino transition magnetic moments
• Direct Detection Experiments at the Neutrino Dipole Portal Frontier
• Neutrino non-standard interactions meet precision measurements of $N_{\mathrm{eff}}$
• Probing new neutral gauge bosons with CEvNS and neutrino-electron scattering
• Calibration of a two-phase xenon time projection chamber with a ${}^{37}$Ar source
• Searching for BSM neutrino interactions in dark matter detectors
• Discovery potential of multi-ton xenon detectors in neutrino electromagnetic properties
• Tensor and scalar interactions of neutrinos may lead to observable neutrino magnetic moments
• Neutrino electromagnetic interactions: a window to new physics
• Probing neutrino magnetic moment at the Jinping neutrino experiment
• Testing the Gallium Anomaly
• The Intermediate Neutrino Program
• Anapole moment of neutrinos and radioactive sources near liquid xenon detectors