Atomic ionization by sterile-to-active neutrino conversion and constraints on dark matter sterile neutrinos with germanium detectors

Abstract

The transition magnetic moment of a sterile-to-active neutrino conversion gives rise to not only radiative decay of a sterile neutrino, but also its non-standard interaction (NSI) with matter. For sterile neutrinos of keV-mass as dark matter candidates, their decay signals are actively searched for in cosmic X-ray spectra. In this work, we consider the NSI that leads to atomic ionization, which can be detected by direct dark matter experiments. It is found that this inelastic scattering process for a nonrelativistic sterile neutrino has a pronounced enhancement in the differential cross section at energy transfer about half of its mass, manifesting experimentally as peaks in the measurable energy spectra. The enhancement effects gradually smear out as the sterile neutrino becomes relativistic. Using data taken with germanium detectors that have fine energy resolution in keV and sub-keV regimes, constraints on sterile neutrino mass and its transition magnetic moment are derived and compared with those from astrophysical observations.

References in corpus (8)

• The Reactor Antineutrino Anomaly
• Detection of An Unidentified Emission Line in the Stacked X-ray spectrum of Galaxy Clusters
• An unidentified line in X-ray spectra of the Andromeda galaxy and Perseus galaxy cluster
• Search of Neutrino Magnetic Moments with a High-Purity Germanium Detector at the Kuo-Sheng Nuclear Power Station
• Where to find a dark matter sterile neutrino?
• Constraints on millicharged neutrinos via analysis of data from atomic ionizations with germanium detectors at sub-keV sensitivities
• Constraining neutrino electromagnetic properties by germanium detectors
• Magnetic moments of active and sterile neutrinos

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Characterization and Performance of Germanium Detectors with sub-keV Sensitivities for Neutrino and Dark Matter Experiments
• Probing light sterile neutrino signatures at reactor and Spallation Neutron Source neutrino experiments
• Constraints on millicharged particles with low threshold germanium detectors at Kuo-Sheng Reactor Neutrino Laboratory
• Constraints on Scalar-Pseudoscalar and Tensorial Non-Standard Interaction and Tensorial Unparticle Couplings from Neutrino-Electron Scattering
• Constraints on Bosonic Dark Matter with Low Threshold Germanium Detector at Kuo-Sheng Reactor Neutrino Laboratory
• Exotic dark matter search with the Majorana Demonstrator
• Inverse Primakoff Scattering for Axionlike Particle Coupling
• Variable Energy X-ray Fluorescence Source