Astroparticle Colloquia

New results on coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering from COHERENT

by Prof. Kate Scholberg (Duke Trinity College of Arts & Science)

Europe/Rome
Virtual

Virtual

https://meet.google.com/uve-fcmv-gri
Description

Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEvNS) is a process in which a neutrino scatters off an entire nucleus at low momentum transfer, and for which the observable signature is a low-energy nuclear recoil.  It represents a background for direct dark matter detection experiments, as well as a possible signal for astrophysical neutrinos.  Furthermore, because the process is cleanly predicted in the Standard Model, a measurement is sensitive to beyond-the-Standard-Model physics, such as non-standard interactions of neutrinos.  It was measured for the first time by the COHERENT collaboration using the high-quality source of pion-decay-at-rest neutrinos from the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a CsI[Na] scintillator detector. COHERENT has recently observed CEvNS in argon, a lighter nucleus, also.  This talk will describe COHERENT's recent results, the status and plans of COHERENT's suite of detectors at the SNS, and future physics reach.