Measurement of coherent elastic neutrino nucleus scattering on germanium by COHERENT

TL;DR

This paper presents the most precise measurement of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering using a germanium detector, providing important data for testing the Standard Model and probing new physics.

Contribution

The study provides the first high-precision measurement of the neutrino-nucleus scattering cross section with germanium, enhancing constraints on non-standard neutrino interactions.

Findings

Measured cross section of 1.00 ± 0.10 (stat) ± 0.10 (sys) in units of 10^{-39} cm^2.

Observed 124 counts with a cumulative exposure of 4.68×10^{22} protons on target.

Improved limits on non-standard neutrino interactions mediated by heavy particles.

Abstract

The COHERENT collaboration reports the most precise measurement of the coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering cross section to date. This measurement was performed with COHERENT's germanium detector array, Ge-Mini, at the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. A cumulative exposure of $4.68\times10^{22}$ protons on target yielded a total number of observed counts of $124^{+14}_{-12}$ and a flux-averaged cross section of $1.00 \pm 0.10 \mathrm{(statistical)} \pm 0.10 \mathrm{(systematic)}$ relative to the standard-model expectation of $5.9\times10^{-39} \mathrm{cm}^2$. The well-understood energy and timing distributions of the neutrino source allow for independent measurements of muon- and electron-neutrino scattering rates. This information is used to improve constraints on non-standard neutrino interactions mediated by heavy particles.