Large Energy Singles at JUNO from Atmospheric Neutrinos and Dark Matter

Abstract

Large liquid scintillator detectors, such as JUNO, present a new opportunity to study neutral current events from the low-energy end of the atmospheric neutrinos, and possible new physics signals due to light dark matter. We carefully study the possibility of detecting ``Large Energy Singles'' (LES), i.e., events with visible scintillation energy $>15$\,MeV, but no other associated tags. For an effective exposure of 20 kton-yr and considering only Standard Model physics, we expect the LES sample to contain $\sim 40$ events from scattering on free protons and $\sim 108$ events from interaction with carbon, from neutral-current interactions of atmospheric neutrinos. Backgrounds, largely due to $\beta$-decays of cosmogenic isotopes, are shown to be significant only below 15 MeV visible energy. The LES sample at JUNO can competitively probe a variety of new physics scenarios, such as boosted dark matter and annihilation of galactic dark matter to sterile neutrinos.

12 pages, 8 figures

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• Distinctive nuclear signatures of low-energy atmospheric neutrinos
• First Detailed Calculation of Atmospheric Neutrino Foregrounds to the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background in Super-Kamiokande
• Prospects of detecting cosmic ray up-scattered dark matter with DUNE
• Boosted dark matter versus dark matter-induced neutrinos from single and stacked blazars
• New Signal of Atmospheric Tau Neutrino Appearance: Sub-GeV Neutral-Current Interactions in JUNO
• Atmospheric resonant production for light dark sectors
• Oscillation-Independent Probes of Neutrino Non-Standard Interactions from Supernovae