Understanding the performance of the low energy neutrino factory: the dependence on baseline distance and stored-muon energy

TL;DR

This study evaluates how the performance of a Low Energy Neutrino Factory depends on baseline distance and stored-muon energy, aiming to optimize its configuration for discovering CP violation and mass hierarchy.

Contribution

It systematically analyzes the impact of baseline and energy choices on LENF sensitivity, considering various detector options and recent large { heta}13 hints.

Findings

LENF shows strong discovery potential for large { heta}13 values.

Optimal configurations depend on baseline and stored-muon energy.

LENF can effectively determine CP violation and mass hierarchy.

Abstract

Motivated by recent hints of large {\theta}13 from the T2K, MINOS and Double Chooz experiments, we study the physics reach of a Low Energy Neutrino Factory (LENF) and its dependence on the chosen baseline distance, L, and stored-muon energy, E_{\mu}, in order to ascertain the configuration of the optimal LENF. In particular, we study the performance of the LENF over a range of baseline distances from 1000 km to 4000 km and stored-muon energies from 4 GeV to 25 GeV, connecting the early studies of the LENF (1300 km, 4.5 GeV) to those of the conventional, high-energy neutrino factory design (4000 km and 7000 km, 25 GeV). Three different magnetized detector options are considered: a Totally-Active Scintillator Detector (TASD) and two models of a liquid-argon detector distinguished by optimistic and conservative performance estimates. In order to compare the sensitivity of each set-up, we compute the full {\delta}-dependent discovery contours for the determination of non-zero {\theta}13, CP-violating values of {\delta} and the mass hierarchy. In the case of large {\theta}13 with sin^2(2*{\theta}13) = (few)*10^{-3}, the LENF provides a strong discovery potential over the majority of the L-E_{\mu} parameter space and is a promising candidate for the future generation of long baseline experiments aimed at discovering CP-violation and the mass hierarchy, and at making a precise determination of the oscillation parameters.