Nuclear physics anomalies in beryllium-8 and helium-4 decay sparked intense speculation of a 17 MeV fifth force boson; measuring coherent elastic solar neutrino-nucleus scattering in ultra-sensitive dark matter detectors establishes strict bounds on X17 couplings.
For decades, physicists have recognized four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force. Experiments at the Atomki institute in Hungary challenged this picture by detecting anomalous angular correlations in nuclear decays, suggesting a new 17 MeV protophobic vector boson dubbed ''.
Confirming or ruling out a fifth fundamental force of nature requires independent, non-nuclear experimental verification that avoids systematic nuclear resonance uncertainties.
This phenomenological study derives the scattering signatures of exchange in Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering (CEvNS) induced by solar neutrinos in multi-tonne liquid xenon detectors (XENONnT, LZ, PandaX). The analysis demonstrates that existing low-threshold solar neutrino data place severe constraints on electron and quark couplings.
Leveraging dark matter detectors to probe fundamental force carriers establishes a powerful cross-disciplinary technique to definitively confirm or refute fifth-force anomalies.
Signatures of $X_{17}$ through Coherent Elastic Solar Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering in Direct Detection Searches
The particle has been proposed to explain the invariant mass anomalies observed in electron-positron pairs during nuclear transitions at the Atomki experiment. Motivated by recent observations of B solar neutrinos induced coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CENS), we present the first comprehensive analysis of the hypothetical boson using data from multi-ton dark matter direct detection facilities. We consider the new particle as a light mediator arising from a spontaneously broken symmetry, featuring both vector and axial-vector couplings to leptons. By evaluating the latest datasets from XENONnT, PandaX-4T, and LUX-ZEPLIN, we derive stringent limits on the effective vector coupling utilizing marginalization procedures. Our global analysis provides competitive constraints that meaningfully narrow the allowed parameter space of the model, while exhibiting a clear sensitivity to the tau-flavor coupling.
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