Sensitivity of nEXO to <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mmultiscripts> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>Xe</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mprescripts/> <mml:none/> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>136</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </m

We study the sensitivity of nEXO to solar neutrino charged-current interactions, ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{e}+^{136}\mathrm{Xe}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}{^{136}\mathrm{Cs}}^{*}+{e}^{\ensuremath{-}}$, as well as analogous interactions predicted by models of fermionic dark matter. Due to the recently observed low-lying isomeric states of $^{136}\mathrm{Cs}$, these interactions will create a time-delayed coincident signal observable in the scintillation channel. Here we develop a detailed Monte Carlo simulation of scintillation emission, propagation, and detection in the nEXO detector to model these signals under different assumptions about the timing resolution of the photosensor readout. We show this correlated signal can be used to achieve background discrimination on the order of ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}9}$, enabling nEXO to make background-free measurements of solar neutrinos above the reaction threshold of 0.668 MeV. We project that nEXO could measure the flux of neutrinos from the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen cycle with a statistical uncertainty of 25%, thus contributing a novel and competitive measurement toward addressing the solar metallicity problem. Additionally, nEXO could measure the mean energy of the $^{7}\mathrm{Be}$ neutrinos with a precision of $\ensuremath{\sigma}\ensuremath{\le}1.5\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{keV}$ and could determine the survival probability of $^{7}\mathrm{Be}$ and pep solar ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{e}$ with precision comparable to the state of the art. These quantities are sensitive to the Sun's core temperature and to nonstandard neutrino interactions, respectively. Furthermore, the strong background suppression would allow nEXO to search for charged-current interactions of fermionic dark matter in the mass range ${m}_{\ensuremath{\chi}}=0.668--7\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{MeV}$ with a sensitivity up to three orders of magnitude better than current limits.

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Journal
Physical review. D/Physical review. D.
Published
2025-11-06
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1103/6h4p-nk1y
Primary Topic
Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena
Type
article
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0.00
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article

Sensitivity of nEXO to <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mmultiscripts> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>Xe</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mprescripts/> <mml:none/> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>136</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </m

E. van Bruggen, D. Gallacher, Evan Angelico, V. Belov et al.
Physical review. D/Physical review. D.
Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena
article

Sensitivity of nEXO to <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mmultiscripts> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>Xe</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mprescripts/> <mml:none/> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>136</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </m

E. van Bruggen, D. Gallacher, Evan Angelico, V. Belov, Alec Iverson, J. C. Nzobadila Ondze, T.I. Totev, S. Rescia, K. K. H. Leung, B. Mong, Teena Shetty, M. Heffner, Liangjian Wen, R. Collister, T. Vallivilayil John, C. Malbrunot, X. E. Ngwadla, Johan Söderström, C. A. Hardy, A. Kuchenkov, S. Viel, D. Cesmecioglu, G. Richardson, Trilochan Bhatta, S. Sangiorgio, M. Medina-Peregrina, M. Walent, S. Majidi, S. Bron, P. C. Rowson, S. Al Kharusi, P. Kachru, Vincent Riot, E. Caden, D. K. Keblbeck, J. Bane, J. Brodsky, O. A. Tyuka, W. Gillis, D. S. Leonard, J. L. Orrell, Z. Li, R. Gornea, Marilyn Alder Marquis, B. Eckert, A. Atencio, Meng Yu, A. Peña Perez, Xilei Sun, S. Hedges, P. A. Breur, R. Tsang, S. Triambak, B. T. Foust, Liqun Cao, R. DeVoe, A. Piepke, R. Saldanha, H Lewis, I. J. Arnquist, Ram Naresh, Haiwen Xu, L. Yang, G. Giacomini, G. F. Cao, A. Pocar, T. Daniels, F. Spadoni, R. MacLellan, S. Thibado, I. Kotov, M. Watts, Sylvain Lavoie, V. Stekhanov, R. R. Ross, D. Ray, S Mngonyama, E. P. Bernard, A. Gorham, A. C. Larson, A. Lennarz, J. Masbou, W. Fairbank, M. Vidal, T. Brunner, M. J. Dolinski, B. G. Lenardo, K. G. Leach, Q. Daniel Wang, K. Ni, J. D. Holt, A. Amy, L. Darroch, Emilie Hein, G.S. Ortega, Pramod Acharya, C. Licciardi, R. Lindsay, H. Peltz Smalley, Arthur Anker, A. Brown, Nicola Rocco, D. C. Moore, S. Wilde, O. Zeldovich, Adel A.A. Emara, H. Rasiwala, M. Elbeltagi, M. B. Latif, G. Li, Xuemei Wu, John G. Breslin, Wei Wei, K.S. Kumar, N. Gallice, Anne Nolan, H. B. Yang, M. Chiu, F. Retière, M. Worcester, X. Li, L. Si, S. J. Sekula, V. Radeka, N. Fatemighomi, L. Pagani, A. Odian, A. Karelin, G. Gratta, U. Wichoski, S. C. Nowicki, A. E. Bolotnikov, M. L. di Vacri, M Wehrfritz, J. L. Vuilleumier, H. Wang, B Burnell, K. Gracequist
article en

Abstract

We study the sensitivity of nEXO to solar neutrino charged-current interactions, ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{e}+^{136}\mathrm{Xe}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}{^{136}\mathrm{Cs}}^{*}+{e}^{\ensuremath{-}}$, as well as analogous interactions predicted by models of fermionic dark matter. Due to the recently observed low-lying isomeric states of $^{136}\mathrm{Cs}$, these interactions will create a time-delayed coincident signal observable in the scintillation channel. Here we develop a detailed Monte Carlo simulation of scintillation emission, propagation, and detection in the nEXO detector to model these signals under different assumptions about the timing resolution of the photosensor readout. We show this correlated signal can be used to achieve background discrimination on the order of ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}9}$, enabling nEXO to make background-free measurements of solar neutrinos above the reaction threshold of 0.668 MeV. We project that nEXO could measure the flux of neutrinos from the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen cycle with a statistical uncertainty of 25%, thus contributing a novel and competitive measurement toward addressing the solar metallicity problem. Additionally, nEXO could measure the mean energy of the $^{7}\mathrm{Be}$ neutrinos with a precision of $\ensuremath{\sigma}\ensuremath{\le}1.5\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{keV}$ and could determine the survival probability of $^{7}\mathrm{Be}$ and pep solar ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{e}$ with precision comparable to the state of the art. These quantities are sensitive to the Sun's core temperature and to nonstandard neutrino interactions, respectively. Furthermore, the strong background suppression would allow nEXO to search for charged-current interactions of fermionic dark matter in the mass range ${m}_{\ensuremath{\chi}}=0.668--7\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{MeV}$ with a sensitivity up to three orders of magnitude better than current limits.

Physical review. D/Physical review. D.Vol. 112(10)
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (US), University of Bern (CH), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (US), TRIUMF (CA), University of British Columbia (CA), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (US), University of Kentucky (US), University of North Carolina Wilmington (US), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (US), Montclair State University (US), Colorado School of Mines (US), University of Alabama (US), University of South Dakota (US), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN), Brookhaven National Laboratory (US), Queen's University (CA), University of Massachusetts Amherst (US), Kurchatov Institute (RU), University of Alabama System (US), SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (US), Yale University (US), University of California San Diego (US), Institute for Basic Science (KR), Institute of Microelectronics (CN), Institute of High Energy Physics (CN), Snolab (CA), McGill University (CA), Laurentian University (CA), Carleton University (CA), Drexel University (US), University of Windsor (CA), University of the Western Cape (ZA), Colorado State University (US), Skyline College (US), Stanford University (US), Nantes Université (FR), McMaster University (CA)
Openalex Percentile: Top 85%
Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena
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