General Neutrino Interactions at the DUNE Near Detector

TL;DR

This paper explores how the DUNE near detector can detect and constrain various types of general neutrino interactions, potentially revealing new physics at energy scales up to 9 TeV and improving existing bounds.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of all possible neutrino interaction types at the DUNE near detector, including scalar, pseudoscalar, and tensor interactions, extending beyond standard non-standard interactions.

Findings

Energy scales up to 9 TeV are accessible.

Current bounds on interaction parameters can be improved by up to an order of magnitude.

Limits are comparable and complementary to those from neutrino oscillation analyses.

Abstract

We consider the effect of general neutrino interactions (scalar, vector, pseudoscalar, axial vector and tensor) in neutrino-electron scattering at the DUNE near detector. Those interactions can be associated with heavy new physics and their effect is to cause distortions in the recoil spectrum of the electrons. We show that for some cases energy scales up to 9 TeV are accessible after a 5 year run and that current bounds on interaction parameters can be improved by up to an order of magnitude. The full set of general interactions includes the usually considered neutrino-electron non-standard matter interactions, and the near detector will give limits comparable but complementary to the ones from the analysis of neutrino oscillations in the far detector.