Speakers
Suprabh Prakash
(Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou)Prof.
Wei Wang
(Sun Yat-Sen University)
Description
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is designed to resolve the neu-
trino mass hierarchy by observing the survival spectrum of antineutrinos from multiple nu-
clear reactors that are ∼ 53 km away in its 20 kt liquid scintillator detector. To be able to
resolve the subtle oscillation cycle shifts in the survival spectrum caused by different neu-
trino mass hierarchies, the JUNO detector has been designed to reach energy resolution of
3%/ E/MeV and energy scale uncertainty better than 1% for the energy range that is rele- vant for reactor antineutrinos. With such energy response performance, massive size, and ∼ 700 m rock overburden, the JUNO detector is potentially a competitive device that can be used to probe other outstanding problems beyond neutrino oscillation physics as well. In this work, we explore JUNO’s potential to solve two such problems - 1) Nucleon Decay searches, and 2) Indirect Detection of Dark Matter.
Proton decays, via the kaon plus anti-neutrino channel are favored by many SUSY GUT mod-
els. The current lifetime has been constrained to be greater than 5.9 × 1033 years at 90% C.L.
by the massive Super-Kamiokande (Super-K) water Cerenkov detector. The JUNO detector
will have a much higher detection efficiency, ∼ 65% preliminarily, for this particular channel
due to its superior energy response compared to Super-K. Our preliminary analysis shows
that it can surpass the current Super-K limit in 3 years of data taking. With 10 years of data,
the expected background is ∼ 0.5 events. If no event is observed, it can reach 1.9 × 1034 years
at 90% C.L., which is very close to the region of interest predicted by some GUT models. In
the case of indirect detection of Dark Matter also, JUNO’s performance is quite remarkable.
We have considered the neutrino flux resulting from DM annihilation inside the Sun via the
channels χχ → τ+τ− and χχ → νν ̄. Only the muon events with track lengths greater than
5 m within the detector have been considered. For such events, the direction of muon tracks
can be reconstructed with an accuracy better than 1◦. We find that JUNO’s sensitivity to spin-
dependent scattering cross-section σSD is much better than the current direct detection con- χp
straints. In the case of spin-independent σS I also, JUNO is competitive with direct detection χp
experiments for mχ < 7 GeV.
Primary authors
Suprabh Prakash
(Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou)
Prof.
Wei Wang
(Sun Yat-Sen University)
