First Measurement of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering on Argon

Abstract

We report the first measurement of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (\cevns) on argon using a liquid argon detector at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Spallation Neutron Source. Two independent analyses prefer \cevns over the background-only null hypothesis with greater than $3\ddot{I}ƒ$ significance. The measured cross section, averaged over the incident neutrino flux, is (2.2 $\pm$ 0.7) $\times$10${}^{-39}$ cm${}^2$ -- consistent with the standard model prediction. The neutron-number dependence of this result, together with that from our previous measurement on CsI, confirms the existence of the \cevns process and provides improved constraints on non-standard neutrino interactions.

8 pages, 5 figures with 2 pages, 6 figures supplementary material V3: fixes to figs 3,4 V4: fix typo in table 1, V5: replaced missing appendix, V6: fix Eq 1, new fig 3, V7 final version, updated with final revisions