Neutrino Discovery Limit of Dark Matter Direct Detection Experiments in the Presence of Non-Standard Interactions

TL;DR

This paper investigates how non-standard neutrino interactions can alter the neutrino background limit in dark matter direct detection experiments, potentially increasing the discovery threshold by up to five times.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of the impact of non-standard neutrino interactions on the neutrino floor using global data and likelihood methods.

Findings

Non-standard interactions can raise the neutrino floor by up to a factor of 5.

The impact varies across different future experiments.

Non-standard interactions affect both neutrino propagation and detection processes.

Abstract

The detection of coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering by the COHERENT collaboration has set on quantitative grounds the existence of an irreducible neutrino background in direct detection searches of Weakly Interacting Massive Dark Matter candidates. This background leads to an ultimate discovery limit for these experiments: a minimum Dark Matter interaction cross section below which events produced by the coherent neutrino scattering will mimic the Dark Matter signal, the so-called \emph{neutrino floor}. In this work we study the modification of such neutrino floor induced by non-standard neutrino interactions within their presently allowed values by the global analysis of oscillation and COHERENT data. By using the full likelihood information of such global analysis we consistently account for the correlated effects of non-standard neutrino interactions both in the neutrino propagation in matter and in its interaction in the detector. We quantify their impact on the neutrino floor for five future experiments: DARWIN (Xe), ARGO (Ar), Super-CDMS HV (Ge and Si) and CRESST phase III (CaWO$_4$). Quantitatively, we find that non-standard neutrino interactions allowed at the $3\sigma$ level can result in an increase of the neutrino floor of up to a factor $\sim 5$ with respect to the Standard Model expectations and impact the expected sensitivities of the ARGO, CRESST phase III and DARWIN experiments.