Constraints on elastic neutrino nucleus scattering in the fully coherent regime from the CONUS experiment

TL;DR

This paper presents the most stringent limit to date on coherent elastic scattering of reactor antineutrinos off germanium nuclei, constraining quenching parameters and advancing understanding of neutrino interactions.

Contribution

First measurement of reactor antineutrino coherent scattering off germanium with new limits on quenching parameters and neutrino event rates.

Findings

Set an upper limit of 85 neutrino events at 90% CL

Disfavors quenching parameters above 0.27

Provides new constraints on neutrino interaction models

Abstract

We report the best limit on coherent elastic scattering of electron antineutrinos emitted from a nuclear reactor off germanium nuclei. The measurement was performed with the CONUS detectors positioned at 17.1m from the 3.9GWth reactor core of the nuclear power plant in Brokdorf, Germany. The antineutrino energies of less than 10 MeV assure interactions in the fully coherent regime. The analyzed dataset includes 248.7 kgd with the reactor turned on and background data of 58.8 kgd with the reactor off. With a quenching parameter of k = 0.18 for germanium, we determined an upper limit on the number of neutrino events of 85 in the region of interest at 90% confidence level. This new CONUS dataset disfavors quenching parameters above k = 0.27, under the assumption of standard-model-like coherent scattering of the reactor antineutrinos.