Probing nonstandard interactions with reactor neutrinos

TL;DR

This paper derives new constraints on the weak mixing angle and neutrino charge radius from low-energy reactor neutrino experiments, including recent measurements, and discusses future sensitivities to nonstandard neutrino interactions.

Contribution

It provides updated limits on fundamental neutrino properties using combined experimental data and explores potential future experimental sensitivities.

Findings

Weak mixing angle measured as sin^2 θ_W = 0.255 +0.022 -0.023

Electron neutrino charge radius squared bounded to (0.9 +0.9 -1.0) x 10^{-32} cm^2

Future experiments could improve sensitivity to nonstandard neutrino interactions

Abstract

New limits on the weak mixing angle and on the electron neutrino effective charge radius in the low energy regime, below 100 MeV, are obtained from a combined fit of all electron-(anti)neutrino electron elastic scattering measurements. We have included the recent TEXONO measurement with a CsI (Tl) detector. Only statistical error of this measurement has been taken into account. Weak mixing angle is found to be sin^2 theta_W = 0.255 +0.022 -0.023. The electron neutrino effective charge radius squared is bounded to be r^2 = (0.9 +0.9 -1.0) x 10^{-32} cm^2. The sensitivity of future low energy neutrino experiments to nonstandard interactions of neutrinos with quarks is also discussed.