First Indication of Solar B 8 Neutrinos via Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering with XENONnT

• Published in: Physical review letters 2024-11, Vol.133 (19), Article 191002
• Main Authors: Aprile, E., Aalbers, J., Abe, K., Ahmed Maouloud, S., Althueser, L., Andrieu, B., Angelino, E., Antón Martin, D., Arneodo, F., Baudis, L., Bazyk, M., Bellagamba, L., Biondi, R., Bismark, A., Boese, K., Brown, A., Bruno, G., Budnik, R., Cai, C., Capelli, C., Cardoso, J. M. R., Cimental Chávez, A. P., Colijn, A. P., Conrad, J., Cuenca-García, J. J., D’Andrea, V., Daniel Garcia, L. C., Decowski, M. P., Deisting, A., Di Donato, C., Di Gangi, P., Diglio, S., Eitel, K., Elykov, A., Ferella, A. D., Ferrari, C., Fischer, H., Flehmke, T., Flierman, M., Fulgione, W., Fuselli, C., Gaemers, P., Gaior, R., Galloway, M., Gao, F., Ghosh, S., Giacomobono, R., Glade-Beucke, R., Grandi, L., Grigat, J., Guan, H., Guida, M., Gyorgy, P., Hammann, R., Higuera, A., Hils, C., Hoetzsch, L., Hood, N. F., Iacovacci, M., Itow, Y., Jakob, J., Joerg, F., Kaminaga, Y., Kara, M., Kavrigin, P., Kazama, S., Kobayashi, M., Koke, D., Kopec, A., Kuger, F., Landsman, H., Lang, R. F., Levinson, L., Li, I., Li, S., Liang, S., Lin, Y.-T., Lindemann, S., Lindner, M., Liu, K., Liu, M., Loizeau, J., Lombardi, F., Long, J., Lopes, J. A. M., Luce, T., Ma, Y., Macolino, C., Mahlstedt, J., Mancuso, A., Manenti, L., Marignetti, F., Marrodán Undagoitia, T., Martens, K., Masbou, J., Masson, E., Mastroianni, S., Melchiorre, A., Merz, J., Messina, M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0031-9007; 1079-7114
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.191002

We present the first measurement of nuclear recoils from solar B 8 neutrinos via coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering with the XENONnT dark matter experiment. The central detector of XENONnT is a low-background, two-phase time projection chamber with a 5.9 t sensitive liquid xenon target. A blind analysis with an exposure of 3.51 t × yr resulted in 37 observed events above 0.5 keV, with ( 26.4 − 1.3 + 1.4 ) events expected from backgrounds. The background-only hypothesis is rejected with a statistical significance of 2.73 σ . The measured B 8 solar neutrino flux of ( 4.7 − 2.3 + 3.6 ) × 10 6 cm − 2 s − 1 is consistent with results from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory. The measured neutrino flux-weighted CE ν NS cross section on Xe of ( 1.1 − 0.5 + 0.8 ) × 10 − 39 cm 2 is consistent with the Standard Model prediction. This is the first direct measurement of nuclear recoils from solar neutrinos with a dark matter detector.