Electron Neutrinos at T2K

TL;DR

The T2K experiment investigates electron neutrino appearance over a 295 km baseline to measure neutrino oscillation parameters, aiming to determine theta13 and theta23, and to explore potential CP violation in the neutrino sector.

Contribution

This paper reports on the status and predicted performance of the T2K experiment's electron neutrino appearance measurement, highlighting its role in constraining neutrino oscillation parameters.

Findings

T2K aims to measure electron neutrino appearance at 295 km.

The experiment's near and far detectors are crucial for background understanding.

Predicted sensitivity to key neutrino oscillation parameters is presented.

Abstract

Tokai-to-Kamioka T2K is a long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment, looking for sub-dominant muon neutrino to electron neutrino oscillations. One of the primary aims of the T2K experiment is to narrow down the current limit on the value of theta13 (which if this value large enough, suggests CP violation in the neutrino sector) and to find whether theta23 is maximal, which is crucial for constraining neutrino mass models. T2K produces a high power neutrino beam at the J-PARC facility on the east coast of Japan, and this beam is then characterised by the near detector ND280 280 m from the start of the beam, the far detector (Super-Kamiokande), a 50 kton water Cherenkov detector, then detects the beam at the oscillation maximum of 295 km on Japan's west coast. T2K will be the first experiment to really study the electron neutrino appearance measurement - whose result will be sensitive to theta13 arguably the main physics goal of T2K. The ND280 detector is imperative to this measurement and will be used to understand the electron neutrino appearance background. The status of the T2K experiment and the predicted performance for the electron neutrino appearance measurement is presented here.