Neutrino mass hierarchy determination and other physics potential of medium-baseline reactor neutrino oscillation experiments

TL;DR

Medium-baseline reactor neutrino experiments aim to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy and precisely measure oscillation parameters, with potential to test the PMNS matrix unitarity and explore other physics phenomena.

Contribution

This paper proposes a comprehensive approach for MBRO experiments, including detector performance requirements, physics goals, and a U.S. R&D program to address key challenges.

Findings

MH can be determined with high-performance detectors.

Oscillation parameters can be measured to sub-percent accuracy.

MBRO detectors can study geoneutrinos, astrophysical neutrinos, and proton decay.

Abstract

Medium-baseline reactor neutrino oscillation experiments (MBRO) have been proposed to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy (MH) and to make precise measurements of the neutrino oscillation parameters. With sufficient statistics, better than ~3%/\sqrt{E} energy resolution and well understood energy non-linearity, MH can be determined by analyzing oscillation signals driven by the atmospheric mass-squared difference in the survival spectrum of reactor antineutrinos. With such high performance MBRO detectors, oscillation parameters, such as \sin^22\theta_{12}, \Delta m^2_{21}, and \Delta m^2_{32}, can be measured to sub-percent level, which enables a future test of the PMNS matrix unitarity to ~1% level and helps the forthcoming neutrinoless double beta decay experiments to constrain the allowed <m_{\beta \beta}> values. Combined with results from the next generation long-baseline beam neutrino and atmospheric neutrino oscillation experiments, the MH determination sensitivity can reach higher levels. In addition to the neutrino oscillation physics, MBRO detectors can also be utilized to study geoneutrinos, astrophysical neutrinos and proton decay. We propose to start a U.S. R&D program to identify, quantify and fulfill the key challenges essential for the success of MBRO experiments.