Sensitivity of a Liquid Xenon Detector to Neutrino–Nucleus Coherent Scattering and Neutrino Magnetic Moment from Reactor Neutrinos

Abstract

Liquid xenon is one of the leading targets to search for dark matter via its elastic scattering on nuclei or electrons. Due to their low-threshold and low-background capabilities, liquid xenon detectors can also detect coherent elastic neutrino–nucleus scattering (CEνNS) or neutrino–electron scattering. In this paper, we investigate the feasibility of a compact and movable liquid xenon detector with an active target mass of O(10∼100) kg and single-electron sensitivity to detect CEνNS from anti-neutrinos from a nuclear reactor. Assuming a single- and few-electron background rate at the level achieved by the XENON10/100 experiments, we expect a 5-σ detection of CEνNS with less than 400 kg-days of exposure. We further investigate the sensitivity of such a detector to neutrino magnetic moment with neutrino electron scattering. If an electronic recoil background rate of 0.01∼0.1 events/keV/kg/day above 1 keV can be achieved with adequate shielding, a liquid xenon detector can reach a neutrino magnetic moment sensitivity of 10−11μB, which would improve upon the current most-constraining laboratory limits from the GEMMA and Borexino experiments. Additionally, such a detector would be able to probe the region compatible with a magnetic moment interpretation of the low-energy excess electronic recoil events recently reported by XENON1T.