New signals in dark matter detectors

TL;DR

This paper explores how dark matter detectors can detect enhanced neutrino interactions, revealing potential new physics beyond the Standard Model through scattering processes and their observable signatures.

Contribution

It introduces the idea that dark matter detectors are sensitive to non-standard neutrino physics, including models with sterile neutrinos and dark photons, and discusses their experimental signatures.

Findings

Enhanced neutrino scattering rates can be detected in current dark matter experiments.

Temporal modulation effects can help distinguish non-standard neutrino interactions.

Constraints from astrophysical and laboratory data limit the parameter space of new neutrino physics models.

Abstract

We investigate the scattering of solar neutrinos on electrons and nuclei in dark matter direct detection experiments. The rates of these processes are small in the Standard Model, but can be enhanced by several orders of magnitude if the neutrino sector is slightly non-minimal. This makes even the current generation of dark matter detectors very sensitive to non-standard neutrino physics. Examples discussed here are neutrino magnetic moments and toy models with a simple hidden sector containing a sterile neutrino and a light new gauge boson ("dark photon"). We discuss the expected event spectra and temporal modulation effects, as well as constraints from a variety of astrophysical, cosmological, and laboratory experiments.