Impact of form factor uncertainties on interpretations of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering data
- Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria, Valparaiso (Chile); Univ. of Liege, (Belgium); IFPA, Dep. AGO
- Sun Yat-Sen Univ., Guangzhou (China). School of Physics; Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
- Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
The standard model coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEνNS) cross section is subject to nuclear form factor uncertainties, mainly driven by the root-mean-square radius of the neutron density distribution. Motivated by COHERENT phases I-III and future multi-ton direct detection dark matter searches, we evaluate these uncertainties in cesium iodide, germanium, xenon and argon detectors. We find that the uncertainties become relevant for momentum transfers q≳20 MeV and are essentially independent of the form factor parameterization. Consequently, form factor uncertainties are not important for CEνNS induced by reactor or solar neutrinos. Taking into account these uncertainties, we then evaluate their impact on measurements of CEνNS at COHERENT, the diffuse supernova background (DSNB) neutrinos and sub-GeV atmospheric neutrinos. We also calculate the relative uncertainties in the number of COHERENT events for different nuclei as a function of recoil energy. For DSNB and atmospheric neutrinos, event rates at a liquid argon detector can be uncertain to more than 5%. Finally, we consider the impact of form factor uncertainties on searches for nonstandard neutrino interactions, sterile neutrinos and neutrino generalized interactions. We point out that studies of new physics using CEνNS data are affected by neutron form factor uncertainties, which if not properly taken into account may lead to the misidentification of new physics signals. The uncertainties quantified here are also relevant for dark matter direct detection search
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0010504
- OSTI ID:
- 1598844
- Journal Information:
- Journal of High Energy Physics (Online), Vol. 2019, Issue 6; ISSN 1029-8479
- Publisher:
- Springer BerlinCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Web of Science
Recent Probes of Standard and Non-standard Neutrino Physics With Nuclei
|
journal | November 2019 |
Potentialities of a low-energy detector based on He 4 evaporation to observe atomic effects in coherent neutrino scattering and physics perspectives
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journal | October 2019 |
Searching for Beyond the Standard Model Physics with COHERENT Energy and Timing Data | text | January 2019 |
New physics from COHERENT data with improved Quenching Factor | text | January 2019 |
Electroweak probes of ground state densities | text | January 2019 |
Recent probes of standard and non-standard neutrino physics with nuclei | text | January 2019 |
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