Observation of low-lying isomeric states in ${}^{136}$Cs: a new avenue for dark matter and solar neutrino detection in xenon detectors

Abstract

We report on new measurements establishing the existence of low-lying isomeric states in ${}^{136}$Cs using $\gamma$ rays produced in ${}^{136}$Xe(p,n)${}^{136}$Cs reactions. Two states with $\mathcal{O}(100)$~ns lifetimes are placed in the decay sequence of the ${}^{136}$Cs levels that are populated in charged-current interactions of solar neutrinos and fermionic dark matter with ${}^{136}$Xe. Xenon-based experiments can therefore exploit a delayed-coincidence tag of these interactions, greatly suppressing backgrounds to enable spectroscopic studies of solar neutrinos and dark matter.

Supplemental material available upon request. Version accepted by Phys.Rev.Lett

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Cited by in corpus (3)

• ${}^{138}\mathrm{Ba}(d,\alpha )$ study of states in ${}^{136}\mathrm{Cs}$: Implications for new physics searches with xenon detectors
• ${\beta }^{-}$ decay $Q$-value measurement of ${}^{136}$Cs and its implications to neutrino studies
• Supernova electron-neutrino interactions with xenon in the nEXO detector