Ints Mednieks, Ángel Abusleme, Thomas Adam, Kai Adamowicz, Shakeel Ahmad, Rizwan Ahmed, Sebastiano Aiello, Fengpeng An, Qi An, Giuseppe Andronico, Nikolay V. Anfimov and Antonelli . JUNO sensitivity to invisible decay modes of neutrons. European Physical Journal C, 85(1), Springer Nature, 2025.
Bibtex citation:
Bibtex citation:
@article{19977_2025,
author = {Ints Mednieks and Ángel Abusleme and Thomas Adam and Kai Adamowicz and Shakeel Ahmad and Rizwan Ahmed and Sebastiano Aiello and Fengpeng An and Qi An and Giuseppe Andronico and Nikolay V. Anfimov and Antonelli },
title = {JUNO sensitivity to invisible decay modes of neutrons},
journal = {European Physical Journal C},
volume = {85},
issue = {1},
publisher = {Springer Nature},
year = {2025}
}
author = {Ints Mednieks and Ángel Abusleme and Thomas Adam and Kai Adamowicz and Shakeel Ahmad and Rizwan Ahmed and Sebastiano Aiello and Fengpeng An and Qi An and Giuseppe Andronico and Nikolay V. Anfimov and Antonelli },
title = {JUNO sensitivity to invisible decay modes of neutrons},
journal = {European Physical Journal C},
volume = {85},
issue = {1},
publisher = {Springer Nature},
year = {2025}
}
Abstract: We explore the decay of bound neutrons in the JUNO liquid scintillator detector into invisible particles (e.g., n→3ν or nn→2ν), which do not produce an observable signal. The invisible decay includes two decay modes: n→inv and nn→inv. The invisible decays of s-shell neutrons in 12C will leave a highly excited residual nucleus. Subsequently, some de-excitation modes of the excited residual nuclei can produce a time- and space-correlated triple coincidence signal in the JUNO detector. Based on a full Monte Carlo simulation informed with the latest available data, we estimate all backgrounds, including inverse beta decay events of the reactor antineutrino ν¯e, natural radioactivity, cosmogenic isotopes and neutral current interactions of atmospheric neutrinos. Pulse shape discrimination and multivariate analysis techniques are employed to further suppress backgrounds. With two years of exposure, JUNO is expected to give an order of magnitude improvement compared to the current best limits. After 10 years of data taking, the JUNO expected sensitivities at a 90% confidence level are τ/B(n→inv)>5.0×1031years and τ/B(nn→inv)>1.4×1032years. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.