Characterizing Single-Signal Events from Atmospheric-Neutrino Neutral-Current Interactions in Large Liquid Scintillator Detectors
Abstract
Neutral-current interactions of atmospheric neutrinos in large liquid scintillator detectors offer a new opportunity to study single-signal events (hereafter singles), characterized by a prompt energy deposition on the MeV-to-GeV scale and no identified delayed signal. In this work, we systematically investigate the model dependence of atmospheric-neutrino singles due to the primary neutrino-nucleus interaction, residual-nucleus de-excitation, and secondary interactions in the scintillator. Our results show that the dominant model dependence originates from the primary neutrino-nucleus interaction, especially for neutral-current processes on carbon, whereas de-excitation is essential for the singles selection yet leads to relatively small spectral variations among realistic models. Secondary-interaction effects are also subdominant overall. We further present the predicted event rates and prompt-energy spectra for neutral-current singles, along with the charged-current contribution. Separately, we estimate the low-energy contribution from elastic scattering of sub-\SI{100}{\MeV} atmospheric neutrinos on free protons. These results highlight the physics potential of current and future large liquid scintillator detectors, such as the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory, to study atmospheric-neutrino singles, probe neutrino-nucleus interaction models, and improve background estimates for rare-event searches.
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BibTeX
@misc{qu2026characterizing,
title = {{Characterizing Single-Signal Events from Atmospheric-Neutrino Neutral-Current Interactions in Large Liquid Scintillator Detectors}},
author = {Zhenning Qu and Jie Cheng and Wan-lei Guo and Gaosong Li and Yu-Feng Li and Liang-jian Wen},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2608.28095},
eprint = {2608.28095},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.28095},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Characterizing Single-Signal Events from Atmospheric-Neutrino Neutral-Current Interactions in Large Liquid Scintillator Detectors
AU - Zhenning Qu
AU - Jie Cheng
AU - Wan-lei Guo
AU - Gaosong Li
AU - Yu-Feng Li
AU - Liang-jian Wen
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/28
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2608.28095
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.28095
AB - Neutral-current interactions of atmospheric neutrinos in large liquid scintillator detectors offer a new opportunity to study single-signal events (hereafter singles), characterized by a prompt energy deposition on the MeV-to-GeV scale and no identified delayed signal. In this work, we systematically investigate the model dependence of atmospheric-neutrino singles due to the primary neutrino-nucleus interaction, residual-nucleus de-excitation, and secondary interactions in the scintillator. Our results show that the dominant model dependence originates from the primary neutrino-nucleus interaction, especially for neutral-current processes on carbon, whereas de-excitation is essential for the singles selection yet leads to relatively small spectral variations among realistic models. Secondary-interaction effects are also subdominant overall. We further present the predicted event rates and prompt-energy spectra for neutral-current singles, along with the charged-current contribution. Separately, we estimate the low-energy contribution from elastic scattering of sub-\SI{100}{\MeV} atmospheric neutrinos on free protons. These results highlight the physics potential of current and future large liquid scintillator detectors, such as the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory, to study atmospheric-neutrino singles, probe neutrino-nucleus interaction models, and improve background estimates for rare-event searches.
ER -