A Second Detector Focusing on the Second Oscillation Maximum at an Off-axis Location to Enhance the Mass Hierarchy Discovery Potential in LBNE10

TL;DR

This paper proposes adding a second off-axis detector at LBNE10 to focus on the second oscillation maximum, significantly improving the experiment's sensitivity to neutrino mass hierarchy and CP violation.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel off-axis detector placement targeting the second oscillation maximum to enhance LBNE10's physics discovery potential.

Findings

Enhanced sensitivity to neutrino mass hierarchy.

Improved capability to discover CP violation.

Optimal detector placement at the second oscillation maximum.

Abstract

The Long Baseline Neutrino Oscillation Experiment (LBNE) is proposed to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy and measure the CP phase in the leptonic sector. The current design of LBNE Phase I consists of a 10 kt liquid argon time projection chamber (LBNE10). The neutrino-antineutrino asymmetry in the electron-neutrino appearance probability has contributions from both the CP phase and the matter effect. For this reason, experimental sensitivity to the mass hierarchy depends both on the true value of the CP phase and the true mass hierarchy; LBNE10 will determine the mass hierarchy at high levels of significance for half of CP phase space. We propose placing a second detector at an off-axis location. Such a detector will share the same beamline as the primary LBNE detector. The detector location is chosen such that this detector focuses on a measurement of electron (anti-)neutrino appearance at the second oscillation maximum. We will show that this configuration will enhance the ability of LBNE to determine the mass hierarchy and to discover CP violation in the leptonic sector.