2019 journal article

First constraint on coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering in argon

PHYSICAL REVIEW D, 100(11).

By: D. Akimov*, J. Albert*, P. An*, C. Awe*, P. Barbeau*, B. Becker*, V. Belov*, M. Blackston* ...

co-author countries: Canada 🇨🇦 Korea (Republic of) 🇰🇷 Russian Federation 🇷🇺 United States of America 🇺🇸
Source: Web Of Science
Added: December 30, 2019

Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEvNS) is the dominant neutrino scattering channel for neutrinos of energy $E_\nu < 100$ MeV. We report a limit for this process using data collected in an engineering run of the 29 kg CENNS-10 liquid argon detector located 27.5 m from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) Hg target with $4.2\times 10^{22}$ protons on target. The dataset yielded $< 7.4$ observed CEvNS events implying a cross section for the process, averaged over the SNS pion decay-at-rest flux, of $<3.4 \times 10^{-39}$ cm$^{2}$, a limit within twice the Standard Model prediction. This is the first limit on CEvNS from an argon nucleus and confirms the earlier CsI non-standard neutrino interaction constraints from the collaboration. This run demonstrated the feasibility of the ongoing experimental effort to detect CEvNS with liquid argon.