Although discovered long ago, neutrinos remain as the most enigmatic particles in the Standard Model (SM). This is a consequence of their extremely small cross-section which makes its detection an extraordinary experimental challenge. This has tipycally been tackled by employing extremely large detectors. However, an alternative lies in coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEνNS) in which the neutrino intereacts with a nucleus as a hole resulting in a dramatic enhancement of the interaction probability which opens up the possibility of detecting neutrinos with compact detectors.
However, detection of such process is far from an easy task. Although predicted in the 70s, CEνNS was only first measured a few years ago. This long delay between proposal and detection is mainly a consequence of the combination of a) the limited intensity of the available neutrino sources in the appropiate energy range and b) the only observable of the process: a small nuclear recoil, up to few keV, which required technologies with extremely low energy thresholds. In fact, current measurements are still limited by statistics and new experiments, such as COLINA, are being developed to fully exploit the possibilities of the process.
The potential of miniaturized neutrino detectors presents exciting prospects in various domains. A tangible example lies in their ability to facilitate non-intrusive monitoring of nuclear reactors, serving vital purposes in non-proliferation safeguards through the utilization of ultra-compact CEνNS detectors. More significantly, the discovery of CEνNS has opened a gateway to 4 decades of theoretical proposals aiming to improve our knowledge of nuclear models and neutrino physics, offering fresh avenues for uncovering physics that extends beyond the Standard Model. For example, but not limited to, CEνNS can be used to study Non-Standard neutrino interactions and the neutrino magnetic moment.