Resonant Induced Orbital Electron Capture: Novel method for low-energy ν̅e detection
Abstract
We propose a novel approach to detecting low-energy electron antineutrinos based on the induced capture of orbital electrons by nuclei. This process is resonant, requiring the antineutrino energy to precisely match the energy difference between the final and initial atomic systems. For continuous-spectrum sources, the resonance conditions can be satisfied without fine-tuning, and the effective cross sections depend on the spectral intensity of the ν̅e flux at the resonance rather than on the neutrino energy itself. This opens the possibility of detecting neutrinos of never previously probed low energies. We identify a number of candidate nuclides that allow transitions to excited states of the daughter nuclei corresponding to resonant ν̅e energies below the inverse β decay threshold of 1.8 MeV, and we consider a distinctive atomic-nuclear coincidence signature for background rejection. We discuss implications of the proposed method for detecting low-energy reactor neutrinos, geoneutrinos, and keV-scale thermal solar neutrinos. Applications to neutrino oscillation experiments and to reactor monitoring are also briefly discussed.
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BibTeX
@misc{akhmedov2026resonant,
title = {{Resonant Induced Orbital Electron Capture: Novel method for low-energy $\barν_e$ detection}},
author = {Evgeny Akhmedov and Thierry Lasserre and Leonardo Maturi},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2608.25001},
eprint = {2608.25001},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.25001},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Resonant Induced Orbital Electron Capture: Novel method for low-energy ν̅_e detection
AU - Evgeny Akhmedov
AU - Thierry Lasserre
AU - Leonardo Maturi
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/29
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2608.25001
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.25001
AB - We propose a novel approach to detecting low-energy electron antineutrinos based on the induced capture of orbital electrons by nuclei. This process is resonant, requiring the antineutrino energy to precisely match the energy difference between the final and initial atomic systems. For continuous-spectrum sources, the resonance conditions can be satisfied without fine-tuning, and the effective cross sections depend on the spectral intensity of the ν̅_e flux at the resonance rather than on the neutrino energy itself. This opens the possibility of detecting neutrinos of never previously probed low energies. We identify a number of candidate nuclides that allow transitions to excited states of the daughter nuclei corresponding to resonant ν̅_e energies below the inverse β decay threshold of 1.8 MeV, and we consider a distinctive atomic-nuclear coincidence signature for background rejection. We discuss implications of the proposed method for detecting low-energy reactor neutrinos, geoneutrinos, and keV-scale thermal solar neutrinos. Applications to neutrino oscillation experiments and to reactor monitoring are also briefly discussed.
ER -