XENONnT – Observation of solar neutrinos in dark matter direct search detectors
Inside of the Time Projection Chamber of XENONnT, Credits: Luigi Di Carlo for the XENON collaboration
The XENONnT collaboration has recently announced at IDM 2024 the first measurement of low-energy nuclear recoils from neutrinos produced in the sun involving the decay of 8B.
Alongside hypothetical dark matter particles, neutrinos from the sun have long been predicted to be observables in detectors built to search for dark matter nuclear recoil signals with large time projection chambers filled with liquid Xenon. Observing this feeble signal, with energy barely detectable, requires excellent detector performance and sophisticated signal-to-background discrimination. This has been demonstrated by XENONnT operating at the Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy.
A slight sign of 8B signal is also reported at the same meeting by the PandaX-4T a similar detector operated at the Jingping underground laboratory in China.
Further information
- News on XENONnT website: First measurement of a nuclear recoil signal from solar neutrinos with XENONnT