The physics potential of a reactor neutrino experiment with Skipper CCDs: measuring the weak mixing angle

Journal of High Energy Physics

Salvador Rosauro-Alcaraz¹  Guillermo Fernandez-Moroni²  Pedro A. N. Machado²  Dario Rodrigues³  Ivan Martinez-Soler⁴  Yuber F. Perez-Gonzalez⁴ 

[1] Departamento de Física Téorica and Instituto de Física Téorica, IFT-UAM/CSIC, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, 28049, Madrid, Spain;Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, 60510, Batavia, IL, USA;Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, 60510, Batavia, IL, USA;Department of Physics, FCEN, University of Buenos Aires and IFIBA, CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina;Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, 60510, Batavia, IL, USA;Northwestern University, Department of Physics & Astronomy, 2145 Sheridan Road, 60208, Evanston, IL, USA;Colegio de Física Fundamental e Interdisciplinaria de las Américas (COFI), 254 Norzagaray street, 00901, San Juan, Puerto Rico;

关键词: Neutrino Physics;    Precision QED;   

DOI  :  10.1007/JHEP03(2021)186

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

We analyze in detail the physics potential of an experiment like the one recently proposed by the vIOLETA collaboration: a kilogram-scale Skipper CCD detector deployed 12 meters away from a commercial nuclear reactor core. This experiment would be able to detect coherent elastic neutrino nucleus scattering from reactor neutrinos, capitalizing on the exceptionally low ionization energy threshold of Skipper CCDs. To estimate the physics reach, we elect the measurement of the weak mixing angle as a case study. We choose a realistic benchmark experimental setup and perform variations on this benchmark to understand the role of quenching factor and its systematic uncertainties, background rate and spectral shape, total exposure, and reactor antineutrino flux uncertainty. We take full advantage of the reactor flux measurement of the Daya Bay collaboration to perform a data driven analysis which is, up to a certain extent, independent of the theoretical un- certainties on the reactor antineutrino flux. We show that, under reasonable assumptions, this experimental setup may provide a competitive measurement of the weak mixing angle at few MeV scale with neutrino-nucleus scattering.

【 授权许可】

CC BY