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. 2022 Mar 4;128(9):091803.
doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.091803.

First Directional Measurement of Sub-MeV Solar Neutrinos with Borexino

M Agostini  1   2 , K Altenmüller  1 , S Appel  1 , V Atroshchenko  3 , Z Bagdasarian  4 , D Basilico  5 , G Bellini  5 , J Benziger  6 , R Biondi  7 , D Bravo  5 , B Caccianiga  5 , F Calaprice  8 , A Caminata  9 , P Cavalcante  10 , A Chepurnov  11 , D D'Angelo  5 , S Davini  9 , A Derbin  12 , A Di Giacinto  7 , V Di Marcello  7 , X F Ding  8 , A Di Ludovico  8 , L Di Noto  9 , I Drachnev  12 , A Formozov  13   5 , D Franco  14 , C Galbiati  8   15 , C Ghiano  7 , M Giammarchi  5 , A Goretti  16   8 , A S Göttel  4   17 , M Gromov  13   11 , D Guffanti  18 , Aldo Ianni  7 , Andrea Ianni  8 , A Jany  16 , D Jeschke  1 , V Kobychev  19 , G Korga  20   21 , S Kumaran  4   17 , M Laubenstein  7 , E Litvinovich  3   22 , P Lombardi  5 , I Lomskaya  12 , L Ludhova  4   17 , G Lukyanchenko  3 , L Lukyanchenko  3 , I Machulin  3   22 , J Martyn  18 , E Meroni  5 , M Meyer  23 , L Miramonti  5 , M Misiaszek  16 , V Muratova  12 , B Neumair  1 , M Nieslony  18 , R Nugmanov  3   22 , L Oberauer  1 , V Orekhov  18 , F Ortica  24 , M Pallavicini  9 , L Papp  1 , L Pelicci  4   17 , Ö Penek  4 , L Pietrofaccia  8 , N Pilipenko  12 , A Pocar  25 , G Raikov  3 , M T Ranalli  7 , G Ranucci  5 , A Razeto  7 , A Re  5 , M Redchuk  4   17 , A Romani  24 , N Rossi  7 , S Schönert  1 , D Semenov  12 , G Settanta  4 , M Skorokhvatov  3   22 , A Singhal  4   17 , O Smirnov  13 , A Sotnikov  13 , Y Suvorov  3   7 , R Tartaglia  7 , G Testera  9 , J Thurn  23 , E Unzhakov  12 , A Vishneva  13 , R B Vogelaar  10 , F von Feilitzsch  1 , A Wessel  26   4   17 , M Wojcik  16 , B Wonsak  27 , M Wurm  18 , S Zavatarelli  9 , K Zuber  23 , G Zuzel  16 ; Borexino Collaboration
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Free article

First Directional Measurement of Sub-MeV Solar Neutrinos with Borexino

M Agostini et al. Phys Rev Lett. .
Free article

Abstract

We report the measurement of sub-MeV solar neutrinos through the use of their associated Cherenkov radiation, performed with the Borexino detector at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso. The measurement is achieved using a novel technique that correlates individual photon hits of events to the known position of the Sun. In an energy window between 0.54 to 0.74 MeV, selected using the dominant scintillation light, we have measured 10 887_{-2103}^{+2386}(stat)±947(syst) (68% confidence interval) solar neutrinos out of 19 904 total events. This corresponds to a ^{7}Be neutrino interaction rate of 51.6_{-12.5}^{+13.9} counts/(day·100 ton), which is in agreement with the standard solar model predictions and the previous spectroscopic results of Borexino. The no-neutrino hypothesis can be excluded with >5σ confidence level. For the first time, we have demonstrated the possibility of utilizing the directional Cherenkov information for sub-MeV solar neutrinos, in a large-scale, high light yield liquid scintillator detector. This measurement provides an experimental proof of principle for future hybrid event reconstruction using both Cherenkov and scintillation signatures simultaneously.

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