Physics Potential of a 2540 Km Baseline Superbeam Experiment

TL;DR

This study evaluates a 2540 km baseline superbeam neutrino experiment's ability to determine neutrino mass hierarchy, measure theta13, and explore CP violation, highlighting its high sensitivity and potential for groundbreaking discoveries.

Contribution

It demonstrates the exceptional hierarchy discrimination capability and sensitivity to theta13 and deltaCP of a long-baseline superbeam experiment with specific detector and beam configurations.

Findings

Can determine neutrino mass hierarchy within 5 years for sin^2(2*theta13) > 0.01.

Can measure non-zero theta13 at 3 sigma if sin^2(2*theta13) > 7*10^{-3}.

Can distinguish deltaCP = pi/2 from CP conserving values for sin^2(2*theta13) > 0.02.

Abstract

We study the physics potential of a neutrino superbeam experiment with a 2540 km baseline. We assume a neutrino beam similar to the NuMI beam in medium energy configuration. We consider a 100 kton totally active scintillator detector at a 7 mr off-axis location. We find that such a configuration has outstanding hierarchy discriminating capability. In conjunction with the data from the present reactor neutrino experiments, it can determine the neutrino mass hierarchy at 3 sigma level in less than 5 years, if sin^2(2*theta13) > 0.01, running in the neutrino mode alone. As a stand alone experiment, with a 5 year neutrino run and a 5 year anti-neutrino run, it can determine non-zero theta13 at 3 sigma level if sin^2(2*theta13) > 7*10^{-3} and hierarchy at 3 sigma level if sin^2(2*theta13) > 8*10^{-3}. This data can also distinguish deltaCP = pi/2 from the CP conserving values of 0 and pi, for sin^2(2*theta13) > 0.02.