DPNC seminars

Into the Neutrino Fog — First measurement of CEvNS from solar 8B neutrinos with XENONnT

by Dr Luisa Hötzsch (University of Zurich)

Europe/Zurich
Grand Auditorium (Ecole de physique)

Grand Auditorium

Ecole de physique

Description

The XENONnT experiment, located at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy, operates a ton-scale liquid xenon time projection chamber in the direct search for weakly-interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter. Featuring exceptionally low background levels, unprecedented xenon purity, and a low energy detection threshold, XENONnT is not only highly sensitive to traditional dark matter signatures but also to a range of rare processes.

In this talk, I will present the first measurement of solar neutrinos with XENONnT, achieving sensitivity to nuclear recoils from 8B neutrinos via coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEvNS). This measurement marks the first experimental reach of the so-called "neutrino floor" for dark matter searches, and proves the capabilities of XENONnT to explore new regions of parameter space. Despite the onset of the neutrino fog, where solar neutrinos begin to become the dominant source of backgrounds, the dataset used in this analysis still allows for competitive searches for light dark matter candidates.