$pp$ Solar Neutrinos at DARWIN

Abstract

The DARWIN collaboration recently argued that DARWIN (DARk matter WImp search with liquid xenoN) can collect, via neutrino--electron scattering, a large, useful sample of solar $pp$-neutrinos, and measure their survival probability with sub-percent precision. We explore the physics potential of such a sample in more detail. We estimate that, with 300 ton-years of data, DARWIN can also measure, with the help of current solar neutrino data, the value of ${\sin }^2{\theta }_{13}$, with the potential to exclude ${\sin }^2{\theta }_{13}=0$ close to the three-sigma level. We explore in some detail how well DARWIN can constrain the existence of a new neutrino mass-eigenstate ${\nu }_4$ that is quasi-mass-degenerate with ${\nu }_1$ and find that DARWIN's sensitivity supersedes that of all current and near-future searches for new, very light neutrinos. In particular, DARWIN can test the hypothesis that ${\nu }_1$ is a pseudo-Dirac fermion as long as the induced mass-squared difference is larger than $10^{-13}$ eV${}^2$, one order of magnitude more sensitive than existing constraints. Throughout, we allowed for the hypotheses that DARWIN is filled with natural xenon or ${}^{136}$Xe-depleted xenon.

Comments: 14 pages, 7 figures