Low-energy reactor neutrino physics with the CONNIE experiment

TL;DR

The CONNIE experiment aims to detect reactor neutrino coherent scattering using advanced CCD technology, setting new limits and exploring physics beyond the Standard Model with recent data and detector improvements.

Contribution

This work presents new results from the 2019 data and updates the detector with skipper CCDs, enhancing sensitivity to low-energy neutrino interactions.

Findings

Set an upper limit on coherent scattering rate at 95% CL

Placed constraints on light scalar and vector mediators

Improved detector with skipper CCDs for lower energy threshold

Abstract

The Coherent Neutrino-Nucleus Interaction Experiment (CONNIE) uses fully depleted high-resistivity CCDs (charge coupled devices) with the aim of detecting the coherent elastic scattering of reactor antineutrinos off silicon nuclei and probing physics beyond the Standard Model. The analysis of the 2016--2018 data allowed us to set an upper limit at 95% confidence level on the coherent scattering rate, which was used to place stringent constraints on simplified extensions of the Standard Model with light scalar and vector mediators. In 2019, the experiment operated with an improved readout and a lower energy threshold of 50 eV. We present the performance of the CONNIE experiment, new results of the analysis of 2019 data, and the recent update of the detector with skipper CCDs.