$pp$ Solar Neutrinos at DARWIN

TL;DR

DARWIN can significantly advance solar neutrino physics by precisely measuring $pp$-neutrinos, constraining neutrino mixing parameters, and testing for new light neutrino states with unprecedented sensitivity.

Contribution

This work details DARWIN's potential to measure solar $pp$-neutrinos, determine $ heta_{13}$, and search for quasi-degenerate neutrino states, surpassing current experimental limits.

Findings

DARWIN can measure $ heta_{13}$ with high precision.

It can exclude $ u_1$ as a pseudo-Dirac fermion for mass-squared differences above $10^{-13}$ eV$^2$.

Sensitivity exceeds current and near-future neutrino searches.

Abstract

The DARWIN collaboration recently argued that DARWIN (DARk matter WImp search with liquid xenoN) can collect, via neutrino--electron scattering, a large, useful sample of solar $pp$-neutrinos, and measure their survival probability with sub-percent precision. We explore the physics potential of such a sample in more detail. We estimate that, with 300 ton-years of data, DARWIN can also measure, with the help of current solar neutrino data, the value of $\sin^2\theta_{13}$, with the potential to exclude $\sin^2\theta_{13}=0$ close to the three-sigma level. We explore in some detail how well DARWIN can constrain the existence of a new neutrino mass-eigenstate $\nu_4$ that is quasi-mass-degenerate with $\nu_1$ and find that DARWIN's sensitivity supersedes that of all current and near-future searches for new, very light neutrinos. In particular, DARWIN can test the hypothesis that $\nu_1$ is a pseudo-Dirac fermion as long as the induced mass-squared difference is larger than $10^{-13}$ eV$^2$, one order of magnitude more sensitive than existing constraints. Throughout, we allowed for the hypotheses that DARWIN is filled with natural xenon or $^{136}$Xe-depleted xenon.