DUNE Collaboration(Abud, A. A. et al), Amar Es-Sghir, H., Amedo, P., Antonova, M., Barenboim, G., Benitez Montiel, C., et al. (2025). The track-length extension fitting algorithm for energy measurement of interacting particles in liquid argon TPCs and its performance with ProtoDUNE-SP data. J. Instrum., 20(2), P02021–39pp.
Abstract: This paper introduces a novel track-length extension fitting algorithm for measuring the kinetic energies of inelastically interacting particles in liquid argon time projection chambers (LArTPCs). The algorithm finds the most probable offset in track length for a track-like object by comparing the measured ionization density as a function of position with a theoretical prediction of the energy loss as a function of the energy, including models of electron recombination and detector response. The algorithm can be used to measure the energies of particles that interact before they stop, such as charged pions that are absorbed by argon nuclei. The algorithm's energy measurement resolutions and fractional biases are presented as functions of particle kinetic energy and number of track hits using samples of stopping secondary charged pions in data collected by the ProtoDUNE-SP detector, and also in a detailed simulation. Additional studies describe the impact of the dE/dx model on energy measurement performance. The method described in this paper to characterize the energy measurement performance can be repeated in any LArTPC experiment using stopping secondary charged pions.
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De Romeri, V., Papoulias, D. K., & Ternes, C. A. (2025). Bounds on new neutrino interactions from the first CEνNS data at direct detection experiments. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 05(5), 012–23pp.
Abstract: Recently, two dark matter direct detection experiments have announced the first indications of nuclear recoils from solar 8B neutrinos via coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CE nu NS) with xenon nuclei. These results constitute a turning point, not only for dark matter searches that are now entering the neutrino fog, but they also bring out new opportunities to exploit dark matter facilities as neutrino detectors. We investigate the implications of recent data from the PandaX-4T and XENONnT experiments on both Standard Model physics and new neutrino interactions. We first extract information on the weak mixing angle at low momentum transfer. Then, following a phenomenological approach, we consider Lorentz-invariant interactions (scalar, vector, axial-vector, and tensor) between neutrinos, quarks and charged leptons. Furthermore, we study the U(1)B-L scenario as a concrete example of a new anomaly-free vector interaction. We find that despite the low statistics of these first experimental results, the inferred bounds are in some cases already competitive. For the scope of this work we also compute new bounds on some of the interactions using CE nu NS data from COHERENT and electron recoil data from XENONnT, LUX-ZEPLIN, PandaX-4T, and TEXONO. It seems clear that while direct detection experiments continue to take data, more precise measurements will be available, thus allowing to test new neutrino interactions at the same level or even improving over dedicated neutrino facilities.
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De Romeri, V., Papoulias, D. K., & Sanchez Garcia, G. (2025). Implications of the first CONUS plus measurement of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering. Phys. Rev. D, 111(7), 075025–19pp.
Abstract: The CONUS & thorn; collaboration has reported their first observation of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEvNS). The experiment uses reactor electron antineutrinos and germanium detectors with recoil thresholds as low as 160 eVee. With an exposure of 327 kg x d, the measurement was made with a statistical significance of 3.76. We explore several physics implications of this observation, both within the standard model and in the context of new physics. We focus on a determination of the weak mixing angle, nonstandard and generalized neutrino interactions both with heavy and light mediators, neutrino magnetic moments, and the up-scattering of neutrinos into sterile fermions through the sterile dipole portal and new mediators. Our results highlight the role of reactor-based CEvNS experiments in probing a vast array of neutrino properties and new physics models.
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De Romeri, V., Perez-Gonzalez, Y. F., & Tolino, A. (2025). Primordial black hole probes of heavy neutral leptons. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 04(4), 018–35pp.
Abstract: Primordial black holes (PBH), while still constituting a viable dark matter component, are expected to evaporate through Hawking radiation. Assuming the semi-classical approximation holds up to near the Planck scale, PBHs are expected to evaporate by the present time, emitting a significant flux of particles in their final moments, if produced in the early Universe with an initial mass of similar to 10(15) g. These “exploding” black holes will release a burst of Standard Model particles alongside any additional degrees of freedom, should they exist. We explore the possibility that heavy neutral leptons (HNL), mixing with active neutrinos, are emitted in the final evaporation stages. We perform a multimessenger analysis. We calculate the expected number of active neutrinos from such an event, including contributions due to the HNL decay for different assumptions on the mixings, that could be visible in IceCube. We also estimate the number of gamma-ray events expected at HAWC. By combining the two signals, we infer sensitivities on the active-sterile neutrino mixing and on the sterile neutrino mass. We find that, for instance, for the scenario where U(tau)4 not equal 0, IceCube and HAWC could improve current constraints by a few orders of magnitude, for HNLs masses between 0.1-1 GeV, and a PBH explosion occurring at a distance of similar to 10(-4) pc from Earth.
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DUNE Collaboration(Abud, A. A. et al), Amar Es-Sghir, H., Amedo, P., Antonova, M., Barenboim, G., Benitez Montiel, C., et al. (2024). Performance of a modular ton-scale pixel-readout liquid argon time projection chamber. Instruments, 8, 41–45pp.
Abstract: The Module-0 Demonstrator is a single-phase 600 kg liquid argon time projection chamber operated as a prototype for the DUNE liquid argon near detector. Based on the ArgonCube design concept, Module-0 features a novel 80k-channel pixelated charge readout and advanced high-coverage photon detection system. In this paper, we present an analysis of an eight-day data set consisting of 25 million cosmic ray events collected in the spring of 2021. We use this sample to demonstrate the imaging performance of the charge and light readout systems as well as the signal correlations between the two. We also report argon purity and detector uniformity measurements and provide comparisons to detector simulations.
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