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1. Borexino’s search for low-energy neutrinos associated with gravitational wave events from GWTC-3 database: Borexino Collaboration

   https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-023-11688-4  

   Basilico, D. ; Bellini, G. ; Benziger, J. ; Biondi, R. ; Caccianiga, B. ; Calaprice, F. ; Caminata, A. ; Chepurnov, A. ; D’Angelo, D. ; Derbin, A. ; et al ( June 2023 , The European Physical Journal C)

   The search for neutrino events in correlation with gravitational wave (GW) events for three observing runs (O1, O2 and O3) from 09/2015 to 03/2020 has been performed using the Borexino data-set of the same period. We have searched for signals of neutrino-electron scattering and inverse beta-decay (IBD) within a time window of$$\pm \, 1000$$$\pm 1000$ s centered at the detection moment of a particular GW event. The search was done with three visible energy thresholds of 0.25, 0.8 and 3.0 MeV. Two types of incoming neutrino spectra were considered: the mono-energetic line and the supernova-like spectrum. GW candidates originated by merging binaries of black holes (BHBH), neutron stars (NSNS) and neutron star and black hole (NSBH) were analyzed separately. Additionally, the subset of most intensive BHBH mergers at closer distances and with larger radiative mass than the rest was considered. In total, follow-ups of 74 out of 93 gravitational waves reported in the GWTC-3 catalog were analyzed and no statistically significant excess over the background was observed. As a result, the strongest upper limits on GW-associated neutrino and antineutrino fluences for all flavors ($$\nu _e, \nu _\mu , \nu _\tau $$${\nu }_e,{\nu }_{\mu },{\nu }_{\tau }$) at the level$$10^9{-}10^{15}~\textrm{cm}^{-2}\,\textrm{GW}^{-1}$$${10}^9-{10}^{15}{\text{cm}}^{-2}{\text{GW}}^{-1}$have been obtained in the 0.5–5 MeV neutrino energy range.

    

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2. Measurement of the axial vector form factor from antineutrino–proton scattering

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05478-3  

   Cai, T. ; Moore, M. L. ; Olivier, A. ; Akhter, S. ; Dar, Z. Ahmad ; Ansari, V. ; Ascencio, M. V. ; Bashyal, A. ; Bercellie, A. ; Betancourt, M. ; et al ( February 2023 , Nature)

   Abstract Scattering of high energy particles from nucleons probes their structure, as was done in the experiments that established the non-zero size of the proton using electron beams 1 . The use of charged leptons as scattering probes enables measuring the distribution of electric charges, which is encoded in the vector form factors of the nucleon 2 . Scattering weakly interacting neutrinos gives the opportunity to measure both vector and axial vector form factors of the nucleon, providing an additional, complementary probe of their structure. The nucleon transition axial form factor, F A , can be measured from neutrino scattering from free nucleons, ν μ n  →  μ − p and $${\bar{\nu }}_{\mu }p\to {\mu }^{+}n$$ ν ¯ μ p → μ + n , as a function of the negative four-momentum transfer squared ( Q 2 ). Up to now, F A ( Q 2 ) has been extracted from the bound nucleons in neutrino–deuterium scattering 3–9 , which requires uncertain nuclear corrections 10 . Here we report the first high-statistics measurement, to our knowledge, of the $${\bar{\nu }}_{\mu }\,p\to {\mu }^{+}n$$ ν ¯ μ p → μ + n cross-section from the hydrogen atom, using the plastic scintillator target of the MINERvA 11 experiment, extracting F A from free proton targets and measuring the nucleon axial charge radius, r A , to be 0.73 ± 0.17 fm. The antineutrino–hydrogen scattering presented here can access the axial form factor without the need for nuclear theory corrections, and enables direct comparisons with the increasingly precise lattice quantum chromodynamics computations 12–15 . Finally, the tools developed for this analysis and the result presented are substantial advancements in our capabilities to understand the nucleon structure in the weak sector, and also help the current and future neutrino oscillation experiments 16–20 to better constrain neutrino interaction models. 

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3. Supernova neutrino burst detection with the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment: DUNE Collaboration

   https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-021-09166-w  

   Abi, B. ; Acciarri, R. ; Acero, M. A. ; Adamov, G. ; Adams, D. ; Adinolfi, M. ; Ahmad, Z. ; Ahmed, J. ; Alion, T. ; Alonso Monsalve, S. ; et al ( May 2021 , The European Physical Journal C)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), a 40-kton underground liquid argon time projection chamber experiment, will be sensitive to the electron-neutrino flavor component of the burst of neutrinos expected from the next Galactic core-collapse supernova. Such an observation will bring unique insight into the astrophysics of core collapse as well as into the properties of neutrinos. The general capabilities of DUNE for neutrino detection in the relevant few- to few-tens-of-MeV neutrino energy range will be described. As an example, DUNE’s ability to constrain the $$\nu _e$$ ν e spectral parameters of the neutrino burst will be considered. 

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4. Performance of novel VUV-sensitive Silicon Photo-Multipliers for nEXO

   https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-022-11072-8  

   Gallina, G. ; Guan, Y. ; Retiere, F. ; Cao, G. ; Bolotnikov, A. ; Kotov, I. ; Rescia, S. ; Soma, A. K. ; Tsang, T. ; Darroch, L. ; et al ( December 2022 , The European Physical Journal C)

   Abstract Liquid xenon time projection chambers are promising detectors to search for neutrinoless double beta decay (0 $$\nu \beta \beta $$ ν β β ), due to their response uniformity, monolithic sensitive volume, scalability to large target masses, and suitability for extremely low background operations. The nEXO collaboration has designed a tonne-scale time projection chamber that aims to search for 0 $$\nu \beta \beta $$ ν β β of $$^{136}$$ 136 Xe with projected half-life sensitivity of $$1.35\times 10^{28}$$ 1.35 × 10 28  yr. To reach this sensitivity, the design goal for nEXO is $$\le $$ ≤ 1% energy resolution at the decay Q -value ( $$2458.07\pm 0.31$$ 2458.07 ± 0.31  keV). Reaching this resolution requires the efficient collection of both the ionization and scintillation produced in the detector. The nEXO design employs Silicon Photo-Multipliers (SiPMs) to detect the vacuum ultra-violet, 175 nm scintillation light of liquid xenon. This paper reports on the characterization of the newest vacuum ultra-violet sensitive Fondazione Bruno Kessler VUVHD3 SiPMs specifically designed for nEXO, as well as new measurements on new test samples of previously characterised Hamamatsu VUV4 Multi Pixel Photon Counters (MPPCs). Various SiPM and MPPC parameters, such as dark noise, gain, direct crosstalk, correlated avalanches and photon detection efficiency were measured as a function of the applied over voltage and wavelength at liquid xenon temperature (163 K). The results from this study are used to provide updated estimates of the achievable energy resolution at the decay Q -value for the nEXO design. 

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5. Neutrino oscillation constraints on U(1)′ models: from non-standard interactions to long-range forces

   https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP01(2021)114  

   Coloma, Pilar ; Gonzalez-Garcia, M. C. ; Maltoni, Michele ( January 2021 , Journal of High Energy Physics)

   null (Ed.)

   A bstract We quantify the effect of gauge bosons from a weakly coupled lepton flavor dependent U(1) ′ interaction on the matter background in the evolution of solar, atmospheric, reactor and long-baseline accelerator neutrinos in the global analysis of oscillation data. The analysis is performed for interaction lengths ranging from the Sun-Earth distance to effective contact neutrino interactions. We survey ∼ 10000 set of models characterized by the six relevant fermion U(1) ′ charges and find that in all cases, constraints on the coupling and mass of the Z′ can be derived. We also find that about 5% of the U(1) ′ model charges lead to a viable LMA-D solution but this is only possible in the contact interaction limit. We explicitly quantify the constraints for a variety of models including $$ \mathrm{U}{(1)}_{B-3{L}_e} $$ U 1 B − 3 L e , $$ \mathrm{U}{(1)}_{B-3{L}_{\mu }} $$ U 1 B − 3 L μ , $$ \mathrm{U}{(1)}_{B-3{L}_{\tau }} $$ U 1 B − 3 L τ , $$ \mathrm{U}{(1)}_{B-\frac{3}{2}\left({L}_{\mu }+{L}_{\tau}\right)} $$ U 1 B − 3 2 L μ + L τ , $$ \mathrm{U}{(1)}_{L_e-{L}_{\mu }} $$ U 1 L e − L μ , $$ \mathrm{U}{(1)}_{L_e-{L}_{\tau }} $$ U 1 L e − L τ , $$ \mathrm{U}{(1)}_{L_e-\frac{1}{2}\left({L}_{\mu }+{L}_{\tau}\right)} $$ U 1 L e − 1 2 L μ + L τ . We compare the constraints imposed by our oscillation analysis with the strongest bounds from fifth force searches, violation of equivalence principle as well as bounds from scattering experiments and white dwarf cooling. Our results show that generically, the oscillation analysis improves over the existing bounds from gravity tests for Z′ lighter than ∼ 10 − 8 → 10 − 11 eV depending on the specific couplings. In the contact interaction limit, we find that for most models listed above there are values of g′ and M Z′ for which the oscillation analysis provides constraints beyond those imposed by laboratory experiments. Finally we illustrate the range of Z′ and couplings leading to a viable LMA-D solution for two sets of models. 

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