Long baseline Super-Beam experiments in Europe within LAGUNA

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the potential of various European long-baseline Super-Beam experiments with different detector technologies and site locations to discover neutrino properties like , CP violation, and mass hierarchy.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of multiple detector configurations, sites, and experimental factors to optimize neutrino physics discovery potential in Europe.

Findings

Optimal baseline distances vary for different physics goals.

Detector technology impacts background rejection and sensitivity.

Systematic uncertainties significantly influence experimental outcomes.

Abstract

We explore the physics reach of several possible configurations for a Super-Beam experiment in Europe, focusing on the possibilities of discovering $\theta_{13}$, CP violation in the leptonic sector and the ordering of neutrino mass eigenstates. We consider the three different detector technologies: Water \v{C}erenkov, Liquid Argon and Liquid Scintillator, and seven possible sites in Europe which would be able to host such a detector underground. The distances to these sites from CERN, where the beam would be originated, go from 130 km to 2300 km. The neutrino flux is optimized in each case as to match the first oscillation peak for each of the baselines under consideration. We also study the impact of several experimental factors in the performance of each detector technology. These include the influence of the spectral information, the rejection efficiencies for the neutral-current backgrounds, the ratio between running times in neutrino and antineutrino modes and the systematic uncertainties on the signal and backgrounds, among others.