Solar neutrino detection in liquid xenon detectors via charged-current scattering to excited states

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential for real-time solar neutrino detection in liquid xenon detectors via charged-current interactions, using nuclear shell models to identify characteristic signals and backgrounds, aiming to improve solar model tests.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed shell model calculation for neutrino interactions with xenon isotopes and proposes methods for tagging excited state de-excitations to enhance detection sensitivity.

Findings

Delayed coincidence signals could enable background-free detection of CNO neutrinos.

Topological signatures are likely dominated by radon backgrounds.

Detection of solar-temperature-induced line shifts in $^{7}$Be neutrinos is feasible.

Abstract

We investigate the prospects for real-time detection of solar neutrinos via the charged-current neutrino-nucleus scattering process in liquid xenon time projection chambers. We use a nuclear shell model, benchmarked with experimental data, to calculate the cross sections for populating specific excited states of the caesium nuclei produced by neutrino capture on $^{131}$Xe and $^{136}$Xe. The shell model is further used to compute the decay schemes of the low-lying $1^{+}$ excited states of $^{136}$Cs, for which there is sparse experimental data. We explore the possibility of tagging the characteristic de-excitation $\gamma$-rays/conversion electrons using two techniques: spatial separation of their energy deposits using event topology and their time separation using delayed coincidence. The efficiencies in each case are evaluated within a range of realistic detector parameters. We find that the topological signatures are likely to be dominated by radon backgrounds, but that a delayed coincidence signature from long-lived states predicted in $^{136}$Cs may enable background-free detection of CNO neutrino interactions in next-generation experiments with smaller uncertainty than current measurements. We also estimate the sensitivity as a function of exposure for detecting the solar-temperature-induced line shift in $^{7}$Be neutrino emission, which may provide a new test of solar models.