Unambiguous Determination of the Neutrino Mass Hierarchy Using Reactor Neutrinos

TL;DR

This paper proposes a reactor neutrino experiment at medium baseline to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy by observing interference effects, achieving high confidence levels within 6 years, and emphasizing the robustness against detector non-linearity.

Contribution

It introduces a method to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy using interference effects in reactor neutrino oscillations, with detailed sensitivity analysis and robustness considerations.

Findings

Determines mass hierarchy at 3-3.5 sigma confidence in 6 years.

Shows limited impact of detector non-linearity on sensitivity.

Enhances confidence by combining interference and absolute measurements.

Abstract

Determination of the neutrino mass hierarchy in a reactor neutrino experiment at medium baseline is discussed. Observation of the interference effects between the \Delta m^2_{31} and \Delta m^2_{32} oscillations enables a relative measurement independent of the knowledge of the absolute mass-squared difference. With a 20 kton liquid scintillator detector of 3%/\sqrt{E(MeV)} energy resolution, the Daya Bay II Experiment at a baseline of \sim 50 km from reactors of total thermal power 36 GW can determine the mass hierarchy at a confidence level of \Delta \chi^2_{MH} \sim (10-12) (3-3.5 \sigma) in 6 years after taking into account the real spatial distribution of reactor cores. We show that the unknown residual energy non-linearity of the liquid scintillator detector has limited impact on the sensitivity due to the self-calibration of small oscillation peaks. Furthermore, an extra increase of \Delta \chi^2_{MH} \simeq 4(9) can be obtained, by including the precise measurement of the effective mass-squared difference \Delta m^2_{\mu\mu} of expected relative error 1.5% (1%) from ongoing long-baseline muon neutrino disappearance experiments. The sensitivities from the interference and from absolute measurements can be cross checked. When combining these two, the mass hierarchy can be determined at a confidence level of \Delta \chi^2_{MH} \sim (15-20) (4 \sigma) in 6 years.