Neutrino-nucleon elastic scattering in presence of non-standard interactions: cross sections and nucleon polarizations

Abstract

New physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) may appear in the form of non-standard neutrino interactions (NSI). We have studied neutral current (anti)neutrino-nucleon scattering in presence of NSI. We obtain that in this scenario, nucleon matrix elements depend not only on the isovector axial nucleon form factor but also on the isoscalar one. For the axial form factors we consequently rely on the quark flavor decomposition performed by QCD simulations in the lattice (LQCD). We have examined cross sections and polarization observables. For the current bounds on diagonal muon flavor NSI couplings we find substantial deviations from the SM predictions in cross sections and transverse polarizations of the outgoing nucleons. In view of the progress in the precision of LQCD determinations of nucleon properties, modern measurements of neutral current (anti)neutrino-nucleon scattering will be in the position to discover or significantly constrain NSI.