Theory of ionizing neutrino-atom collisions: The role of atomic recoil

TL;DR

This paper theoretically analyzes neutrino-induced atomic ionization, emphasizing the negligible impact of atomic recoil effects at current experimental energy scales, especially in searches for neutrino magnetic moments.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework incorporating atomic recoil effects in neutrino-atom ionization, showing these effects are negligible for current experimental conditions.

Findings

Atomic recoil effects are insignificant at typical experimental energies.

Recoil effects only matter near the ionization threshold.

Current experiments are unaffected by atomic recoil considerations.

Abstract

We consider theoretically ionization of an atom by neutrino impact taking into account electromagnetic interactions predicted for massive neutrinos by theories beyond the Standard Model. The effects of atomic recoil in this process are estimated using the one-electron and semiclassical approximations and are found to be unimportant unless the energy transfer is very close to the ionization threshold. We show that the energy scale where these effects become important is insignificant for current experiments searching for magnetic moments of reactor antineutrinos.