← BACK Research The RELICS Experiment 2023-11-16 Reactor neutrinos with a dual-phase xenon TPC RELICS develops liquid-xenon time projection chambers to study coherent elastic neutrino–nucleus scattering (CEνNS) near a nuclear reactor, probing neutrino interactions at low momentum transfer. ~1013 cm−2 s−1 Neutrino flux ~25 m Design baseline ~10 kg RELICS-10 LXe design S2-only Ionization readout 01 / Physics motivation From the reactor to the xenon nucleus Reactor antineutrinos are produced in beta decays of fission products. RELICS aims to probe their coherent elastic scattering on xenon nuclei, using the reactor as an intense source of low-energy antineutrinos. Reactor source concept from the RELICS-10 design poster. Fission-product beta decay produces an electron and an electron antineutrino. 02 / Detector development Detector design and prototype calibration The RELICS-10 design combines a ~10 kg liquid-xenon TPC with shielding and a muon veto. Prototype calibration studies test the xenon response as detector development progresses. RELICS-10 inner TPC RELICS-10 TPC design concept, from the supplied detector-design poster. Prototype S1–S2 calibration Tsinghua prototype data: 37Ar (2.82 keV) and 83mKr (41.5 keV) calibration populations. Development roadmap Planned stages: prototype subsystem R&D, RELICS-5 commissioning and the RELICS-50 next step. The timeline illustrates the development plan. 03 / Neutrino physics CEνNS and tests of neutrino interactions Measurements of the CEνNS cross section can probe electroweak physics and constrain interactions beyond the Standard Model. CEνNS & weak mixing angle Use the CEνNS cross section to probe the weak mixing angle at low momentum transfer. Preliminary RELICS-5/50 projections. The 0% and 30% systematic-uncertainty cases are shown as labelled in the original figure. Non-standard interactions Constrain effective neutrino–quark couplings through the CEνNS rate. RELICS-5 projection and comparison limits on effective NSI couplings, at 90% confidence level. The physics projections shown here refer to RELICS-5/50. The detector schematic above illustrates the RELICS-10 design. RELICS Collaboration Potential host site: Sanmen Nuclear Power Plant, Zhejiang. References and figure credits RELICS Collaboration, Physical Review D 110, 072011 (2024). Read the design paper. Detector and reactor schematics: J. Chen et al., supplied RELICS-10 design poster (preliminary). Calibration data, roadmap and sensitivity figures: collaboration materials supplied for the RELICS roll-up.
