Abstract
Geoneutrinos can provide a unique insight into Earth's interior, its central engine and its formation history. We study the detection of geoneutrinos in large direct detection experiments, which has been considered non-feasible. We compute the geoneutrino-induced electron and nuclear recoil spectra in different materials, under several optimistic assumptions. We identify germanium as the most promising target element due to the low nuclear recoil energy threshold that could be achieved. The minimum exposure required for detection would be $\mathcal{O}(10)$ tonne-years. The realistic low thresholds achievable in germanium and silicon permit the detection of $^{40}$K geoneutrinos. These are particularly important to determine Earth's formation history but they are below the kinematic threshold of inverse beta decay, the detection process used in scintillator-based experiments.
Highlights
The nature of dark matter (DM) remains one of the most pressing issues in modern physics
We study the detection of geoneutrinos in large direct detection experiments, which has been considered nonfeasible
These are important to determining Earth’s formation history, but they are below the kinematic threshold of inverse beta decay, the detection process used in scintillator-based experiments
Summary
The nature of dark matter (DM) remains one of the most pressing issues in modern physics. The generation of large-scale direct detection experiments constitute a promising venue as neutrino detectors. This has been bolstered by the recent detection of the coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering by the COHERENT experiment [4]. Given the status of experimental searches and the plans for larger detectors, as well as recent interest in geoneutrinos, it is timely to revisit this issue and reassess the geoneutrino observation potential of future large-scale direct detection experiments. This is the main purpose of this work
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