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Searches for Light Dark Matter and Evidence of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering of Solar Neutrinos with the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Experiment

D. S. Akerib1,2, A. K. Al Musalhi3, F. Alder3, B. J. Almquist4, C. S. Amarasinghe5, A. Ames1,2, T. J. Anderson1,2, N. Angelides6, H. M. Araújo7,8 et al. (LZ Collaboration)

H. M. Araújo7,8, J. E. Armstrong9, M. Arthurs1,2, A. Baker10, S. Balashov8, J. Bang4, J. W. Bargemann5, E. E. Barillier6, J. Barthel11, D. Bauer7, K. Beattie12, A. Bhatti9, T. P. Biesiadzinski1,2, H. J. Birch6, E. Bishop13, G. M. Blockinger14, C. A. J. Brew8, P. Brás15, S. Burdin16, M. C. Carmona-Benitez17, M. Carter16, A. Chawla18, H. Chen12, Y. T. Chin17, N. I. Chott19, S. Contreras20, M. V. Converse21, R. Coronel1,2, A. Cottle3,*, G. Cox11, D. Curran11, C. E. Dahl22,23, I. Darlington3, S. Dave3, A. David3, J. Davis11, J. Delgaudio11, S. Dey24, L. de Viveiros17, L. Di Felice7, C. Ding4, J. E. Y. Dobson10, E. Druszkiewicz21, S. Dubey4, C. L. Dunbar11, S. R. Eriksen25, S. Fayer7, N. M. Fearon24, N. Fieldhouse24, S. Fiorucci12, H. Flaecher25, E. D. Fraser16, T. M. A. Fruth26, P. W. Gaemers1,2, R. J. Gaitskell4, A. Geffre11, J. Genovesi17,19, C. Ghag3, J. Ghamsari10, A. Ghosh14, S. Ghosh1,2, R. Gibbons12,27, S. Gokhale28, J. Green3, M. G. D. van der Grinten8, J. J. Haiston19, C. R. Hall9, T. Hall16, R. N. Hampp6, S. J. Haselschwardt29, M. A. Hernandez6, S. A. Hertel30, G. J. Homenides31, M. Horn11, D. Q. Huang20, D. Hunt24,32, E. Jacquet7, R. S. James3,33, K. Jenkins15, A. C. Kaboth18, A. C. Kamaha20, M. K. Kannichankandy14, D. Khaitan21, A. Khazov8, J. Kim5, Y. D. Kim34, D. Kodroff12,†, E. V. Korolkova35, H. Kraus24, S. Kravitz32, L. Kreczko25, V. A. Kudryavtsev35, C. Lawes10, D. S. Leonard34, K. T. Lesko12, C. Levy14, J. Lin12,27, A. Lindote15, W. H. Lippincott5, J. Long22, M. I. Lopes15, W. Lorenzon29, C. Lu4, D. Lucero11, S. Luitz1,2, W. Ma24, V. Mahajan25, P. A. Majewski8, A. Manalaysay12, R. L. Mannino36, R. J. Matheson18, C. Maupin11, M. E. McCarthy21, D. N. McKinsey12,27, J. McLaughlin22, J. B. McLaughlin3, R. McMonigle14, B. Mitra22, E. Mizrachi1,2,9,36, M. E. Monzani1,2,37, K. Morå6, E. Morrison19, B. J. Mount38, M. Murdy30, A. St. J. Murphy13, H. N. Nelson5, F. Neves15, A. Nguyen13, C. L. O’Brien32, F. H. O’Shea1, I. Olcina12,27, K. C. Oliver-Mallory7, J. Orpwood35, K. Y. Oyulmaz13, K. J. Palladino24, N. J. Pannifer25, N. Parveen14, S. J. Patton12, B. Penning6, G. Pereira15, E. Perry12, T. Pershing36, A. Piepke31, S. S. Poudel19, Y. Qie21, J. Reichenbacher19, C. A. Rhyne4, G. R. C. Rischbieter6,29, E. Ritchey9, H. S. Riyat13,38, R. Rosero28, N. J. Rowe24, T. Rushton35, D. Rynders11, S. Saltão15, D. Santone24, I. Sargeant8, A. B. M. R. Sazzad31,36, R. W. Schnee19, G. Sehr32, B. Shafer9, S. Shaw13, W. Sherman1,2, K. Shi29, T. Shutt1,2, C. Silva15, G. Sinev19, J. Siniscalco3, A. M. Slivar31, R. Smith12,27, V. N. Solovov15, P. Sorensen12, J. Soria12,27, T. J. Sumner7, A. Swain24, M. Szydagis14, D. J. Taylor11, D. R. Tiedt11, M. Timalsina12, D. R. Tovey35, J. Tranter35, M. Trask5, K. Trengove14, M. Tripathi39, A. Usón13, A. C. Vaitkus4, O. Valentino7, V. Velan12, A. Wang1,2,‡, J. J. Wang31, Y. Wang12,27, L. Weeldreyer5, T. J. Whitis5, K. Wild17, M. Williams12, J. Winnicki1, L. Wolf18, F. L. H. Wolfs21, S. Woodford13,16, D. Woodward12, C. J. Wright25, Q. Xia12, J. Xu36, Y. Xu20, M. Yeh28, D. Yeum9, J. Young10, W. Zha17, H. Zhang13, T. Zhang12, and Y. Zhou7 (LZ Collaboration)

  • 1SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025-7015, USA
  • 2Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-4085 USA
  • 3University College London (UCL), Department of Physics and Astronomy, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom
  • 4Brown University, Department of Physics, Providence, Rhode Island 02912-9037, USA
  • 5University of California, Santa Barbara, Department of Physics, Santa Barbara, California 93106-9530, USA
  • 6University of Zurich, Department of Physics, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
  • 7Imperial College London, Physics Department, Blackett Laboratory, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
  • 8STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), Didcot, OX11 0QX, United Kingdom
  • 9University of Maryland, Department of Physics, College Park, Maryland 20742-4111, USA
  • 10King’s College London, King’s College London, Department of Physics, London WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom
  • 11South Dakota Science and Technology Authority (SDSTA), Sanford Underground Research Facility, Lead, South Dakota 57754-1700, USA
  • 12Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, California 94720-8099, USA
  • 13University of Edinburgh, SUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, Edinburgh EH9 3FD, United Kingdom
  • 14University at Albany (SUNY), Department of Physics, Albany, New York 12222-0100, USA
  • 15Laboratório de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas (LIP), University of Coimbra, P-3004 516 Coimbra, Portugal
  • 16University of Liverpool, Department of Physics, Liverpool L69 7ZE, United Kingdom
  • 17Pennsylvania State University, Department of Physics, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802-6300, USA
  • 18Royal Holloway, University of London, Department of Physics, Egham, TW20 0EX, United Kingdom
  • 19South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, South Dakota 57701-3901, USA
  • 20University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Los Angeles, California 90095-1547, USA
  • 21University of Rochester, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rochester, New York 14627-0171, USA
  • 22Northwestern University, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Evanston, Illinois 60208-3112, USA
  • 23Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, Illinois 60510-5011, USA
  • 24University of Oxford, Department of Physics, Oxford OX1 3RH, United Kingdom
  • 25University of Bristol, H.H. Wills Physics Laboratory, Bristol, BS8 1TL, United Kingdom
  • 26The University of Sydney, School of Physics, Physics Road, Camperdown, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
  • 27University of California, Berkeley, Department of Physics, Berkeley, California 94720-7300, USA
  • 28Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, New York 11973-5000, USA
  • 29University of Michigan, Randall Laboratory of Physics, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1040, USA
  • 30University of Massachusetts, Department of Physics, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003-9337, USA
  • 31University of Alabama, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 34587-0324, USA
  • 32University of Texas at Austin, Department of Physics, Austin, Texas 78712-1192, USA
  • 33The University of Melbourne, School of Physics, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia
  • 34IBS Center for Underground Physics (CUP), Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, Korea
  • 35University of Sheffield, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Sheffield S3 7RH, United Kingdom
  • 36Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, California 94550-9698, USA
  • 37Vatican Observatory, Castel Gandolfo, V-00120, Vatican City State
  • 38Black Hills State University, School of Natural Sciences, Spearfish, South Dakota 57799-0002, USA
  • 39University of California, Davis, Department of Physics, Davis, California 95616-5270, USA

  • *Contact author: a.cottle@ucl.ac.uk
  • †Contact author: danielkodroff@lbl.gov
  • ‡Contact author: awang5@slac.stanford.edu
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 091806 – Published 28 August, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/jvqf-njpj

Abstract

We present searches for light dark matter (DM) with masses 3–9  GeV/c2 in the presence of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEνNS) from B8 solar neutrinos with the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment. This analysis uses a 5.7 tonne-yr exposure with data collected between March 2023 and April 2025. In an energy range spanning 1–6 keV, we report no significant excess of events attributable to dark matter nuclear recoils, but we observe a significant signal from B8 CEνNS interactions that is consistent with expectation. We set world-leading limits on spin-independent and spin-dependent-neutron DM-nucleon interactions for masses down to 5  GeV/c2. In the no-dark-matter scenario, we observe a signal consistent with B8 CEνNS events, corresponding to a 4.5σ statistical significance. This is the most significant evidence of B8 CEνNS interactions and is enabled by robust background modeling and mitigation techniques. This demonstrates LZ’s ability to detect rare signals at keV-scale energies.

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Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

See Also

Probing the Solar B8 Neutrino Fog with XENONnT

E. Aprile et al. (XENON Collaboration)
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 091807 (2026)

Article Text

Supplemental Material

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 091806– Published 28 August, 2026
  • Received 29 December 2025
  • Revised 14 May 2026
  • Accepted 16 July 2026
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