Neutrino non-standard interactions and dark matter searches with multi-ton scale detectors

TL;DR

This paper investigates how neutrino non-standard interactions could alter the neutrino background in large dark matter detectors, potentially affecting the detection of WIMPs.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the effects of neutrino-quark NSI on neutrino backgrounds in multi-ton dark matter detectors, considering recent experimental constraints.

Findings

Neutrino NSI can significantly modify neutrino-nucleus scattering rates.

Flavor-diagonal NSI, especially involving electron neutrinos, have the most pronounced effects.

Altered neutrino backgrounds could impact dark matter detection sensitivity.

Abstract

Future dark matter (DM) direct detection searches will be subject to irreducible neutrino backgrounds that will challenge the identification of an actual WIMP signal in experiments without directionality sensitivity. We study the impact of neutrino-quark non-standard interactions (NSI) on this background, assuming the constraints from neutrino oscillations and the recent COHERENT experiment data, which are relevant for NSI mediated by light mediators, $m_{\rm med} \lesssim{\cal O}$(GeV). We calculate the expected number of neutrino-nucleus elastic scattering events in a Xe-based ton-size dark matter detector, including solar neutrino fluxes from the $pp$ chain and CNO cycle as well as sub-GeV atmospheric fluxes and taking into account NSI effects in both propagation and detection. We find that sizable deviations from the standard model expectation are possible, but are more pronounced for flavor-diagonal couplings, in particular for electron neutrinos. We show that neutrino NSI can enhance or deplete the neutrino-nucleus event rate, which may impact DM searches in multi-ton detectors.