Physics Potential of Future Atmospheric Neutrino Searches

TL;DR

Future atmospheric neutrino experiments with large detectors could effectively determine the neutrino mass hierarchy and the octant of θ23, potentially surpassing long-baseline experiments in sensitivity.

Contribution

This paper analyzes the potential of upcoming atmospheric neutrino detectors to resolve key neutrino properties, highlighting their competitive advantages over existing methods.

Findings

Atmospheric neutrino data can determine the θ23 octant effectively.

Future detectors could identify the neutrino mass hierarchy with high sensitivity.

Atmospheric experiments may outperform long-baseline experiments in certain measurements.

Abstract

The potential of future high statistics atmospheric neutrino experiments is considered, having in mind currently discussed huge detectors of various technologies (water Cerekov, magnetized iron, liquid Argon). I focus on the possibility to use atmospheric data to determine the octant of $\theta_{23}$ and the neutrino mass hierarchy. The sensitivity to the $\theta_{23}$-octant of atmospheric neutrinos is competitive (or even superior) to long-baseline experiments. I discuss the ideal properties of a fictitious atmospheric neutrino detector to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy.