Speaker
Description
In light of the success of the Skipper-CCD technology used for Dark Matter searches [1], its extension to neutrino detection becomes natural. CCDs are being used for reactor neutrino experiments and they have already shown their potential in constraining new physics models [2]. The perspective of a Skipper-CCD experiment to look for standard and beyond standard model physics has been recently evaluated for different benchmark scenarios [3, 4]. Also, the shape of the background measured by a Skipper-CCD at ground level was exhaustively studied [5]. As a result, a uniform spectrum down to 5 electrons was observed, in tension with the excess observed by other experiments at such low energies [6]. The same Skipper-CCD was moved from Fermilab to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where it was installed inside the dome of Atucha II, a nuclear power reactor 100 km north of Buenos Aires City. This system, composed of a single Skipper-CCD of 0.675 gr effective-active mass enclosed in a 5 cm lead shielding, was placed at 12 meters from the center of the reactor core. The detector is operated on continuous readout mode with a sub-electron readout noise of 0.17 e. We discuss the challenges involved in the commissioning of the detector and present preliminary data acquired during reactor-ON and reactor-OFF periods.
[1] O. Abramoff, L. Barak, I. M. Bloch, L. Chaplinsky, M. Crisler, Dawa, A. Drlica-Wagner, R. Essig, J. Estrada, E. Etzion, and et al., “Sensei: Direct-detection constraints on sub-GeV dark matter from a shallow underground run using a prototype skipper CCD,” Physical Review Letters 122 (2019).
[2] CONNIE Collaboration • Alexis Aguilar-Arevalo (Mexico U.) et al. Search for light mediators in the low-energy data of the CONNIE reactor neutrino experiment. JHEP 04 (2020), 054.
[3] G.. Fernandez-Moroni, P. A. N. Machado, I. Martinez-Soler, Y. F. Perez-Gonzalez, D. Rodrigues, and S. RosauroAlcaraz. The physics potential of a reactor neutrino experiment with Skipper CCDs: Measuring the weak mixing angle. JHEP, 03:186, (2021).
[4] G. Fernandez-Moroni, R. Harnik, P. A. N. Machado, I. Martinez-Soler, Y. F. Perez-Gonzalez, D. Rodrigues, and S. Rosauro-Alcaraz. The physics potential of a reactor neutrino experiment with Skipper-CCDs: Searching for new physics with light mediators. J. High Energ. Phys. 2022, 127 (2022).
[5] G. Fernandez Moroni, F. Chierchie, J. Tiffenberg, A. Botti, M. Cababie, G. Cancelo, E. L. Depaoli, J. Estrada, S. E. Holland, D. Rodrigues, I. Sidelnik, M. Sofo Haro, L. Stefanazzi, and S. Uemura. The skipper ccd for low-energy threshold particle experiments above ground, (2022). in press.
[6] P. Adari et. al. Excess workshop: Descriptions of rising low-energy spectra, (2022). arXiv:2202.05097
