Cross sections for coherent elastic and inelastic neutrino-nucleus scattering

Abstract

The prospects of extracting new physics signals in coherent elastic neutrino--nucleus scattering (CE$\nu$NS) processes are limited by the precision with which the underlying nuclear structure physics, embedded in the weak nuclear form factor, is known. We present calculations of charge and weak nuclear form factors and CE$\nu$NS cross sections on ${}^{12}$C, ${}^{16}$O, ${}^{40}$Ar, ${}^{56}$Fe and ${}^{208}$Pb nuclei. We obtain the proton and neutron densities, and charge and weak form factors by solving Hartree--Fock (HF) equations with a Skyrme (SkE2) nuclear potential. We validate our approach by comparing ${}^{208}$Pb and ${}^{40}$Ar charge form factor predictions with available elastic electron scattering data. Since CE$\nu$NS experiments at stopped--pion sources are also well suited to measure inelastic charged--current and neutral--current neutrino--nucleus cross sections, we also present calculations for these processes, incorporating a continuum Random Phase Approximation (CRPA) description on top of the HF-SkE2 picture of the nucleus. Providing both coherent as well as inelastic cross sections in a consistent framework, we aim at obtaining a reliable and detailed comparison of the strength of these processes in the energy region below ~100 MeV. Furthermore, we attempt to gauge the level of theoretical uncertainty pertaining to the description of the ${}^{40}$Ar form factor and CE$\nu$NS cross sections by comparing relative differences between recent microscopic nuclear theory and widely--used phenomenological form factor predictions. Future precision measurements of CE$\nu$NS will potentially help in constraining these nuclear structure details that will in turn improve prospects of extracting new physics.

arXiv commentInvited article for the Special Issue "Many Body Theory" of the Universe journal. Published version. 28 pages, 12 figures

References in corpus (47)

• Observation of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering
• Low-Mass Dark Matter Search with the DarkSide-50 Experiment
• Exclusive Vector Meson Production in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions
• A Proposal for a Three Detector Short-Baseline Neutrino Oscillation Program in the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam
• First Measurement of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering on Argon
• Weak charge form factor and radius of 208Pb through parity violation in electron scattering
• Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering: EFT analysis and nuclear responses
• Model Independent Form Factors for Spin Independent Neutralino-Nucleon Scattering from Elastic Electron Scattering Data
• The $\nu$-cleus experiment: A gram-scale fiducial-volume cryogenic detector for the first detection of coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering
• Average CsI neutron density distribution from COHERENT data
• Neutron skins of atomic nuclei: per aspera ad astra
• Coherent Neutrino Scattering with Low Temperature Bolometers at Chooz Reactor Complex
• Neutrino-nucleus coherent scattering as a probe of neutron density distributions
• Measurement of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering from reactor antineutrinos
• Repulsive baryonic interactions and lattice QCD observables at imaginary chemical potential
• First results from the DEAP-3600 dark matter search with argon at SNOLAB
• Low-energy excitations and quasielastic contribution to electron-nucleus and neutrino-nucleus scattering in the continuum random phase approximation
• Probing light sterile neutrino signatures at reactor and Spallation Neutron Source neutrino experiments
• Constraining nuclear physics parameters with current and future COHERENT data
• Impact of form factor uncertainties on interpretations of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering data
• Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), Far Detector Technical Design Report, Volume II: DUNE Physics
• Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering on 40Ar from first principles
• Recent probes of standard and non-standard neutrino physics with nuclei
• Flavor-dependent radiative corrections in coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering
• Results of the engineering run of the Coherent Neutrino Nucleus Interaction Experiment (CONNIE)
• New Measurements of the Transverse Beam Asymmetry for Elastic Electron Scattering from Selected Nuclei
• First Dark Matter Search Results From Coherent CAPTAIN-Mills
• Accelerator and reactor complementarity in coherent neutrino scattering
• Constraining Sterile Neutrino Interpretations of the LSND and MiniBooNE Anomalies with Coherent Neutrino Scattering Experiments
• Impact of low-energy nuclear excitations on neutrino-nucleus scattering at MiniBooNE and T2K kinematics
• Determining the nuclear neutron distribution from Coherent Elastic neutrino-Nucleus Scattering: current results and future prospects
• Electron versus muon neutrino induced cross sections in charged current quasi-elastic processes
• Extracting nuclear form factors with coherent neutrino scattering
• CP violating effects in coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering processes
• Exploring coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering using reactor electron antineutrinos in the NEON experiment
• Identifying neutrinos and antineutrinos in neutral-current scattering reactions
• Electroweak probes of ground state densities
• First Constraint on Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering in Argon
• Reconstructing supernova-neutrino spectra using low-energy beta-beams
• Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering with directional detectors
• Quasielastic contribution to antineutrino-nucleus scattering
• Modeling quasielastic interactions of monoenergetic kaon decay-at-rest neutrinos
• Forbidden transitions in neutral and charged current interactions between low-energy neutrinos and Argon
• Nuclear structure uncertainties in coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering
• Lepton kinematics in low energy neutrino-Argon interactions
• $A$-dependence of quasielastic charged-current neutrino-nucleus cross sections
• High Energy Physics Opportunities Using Reactor Antineutrinos

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Electron Scattering and Neutrino Physics
• Recent Progress in Low Energy Neutrino Scattering Physics and Its Implications for the Standard and Beyond the Standard Model Physics
• Detailed nuclear structure calculations for coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering
• Weak Charge Form Factor Determination at the Electron-Ion Collider
• Tensor interaction in coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering