The KM3NeT Neutrino Telescope and the potential of a neutrino beam from Russia to the Mediterranean Sea

TL;DR

KM3NeT is a large-scale neutrino telescope in the Mediterranean Sea designed for cosmic neutrino detection and neutrino oscillation studies, with potential to measure CP violation using a neutrino beam from Russia.

Contribution

This paper reviews KM3NeT's construction status and explores the novel potential of a neutrino beam from Russia to enhance neutrino physics research.

Findings

KM3NeT will have two sites with different sensor densities for diverse neutrino observations.

A neutrino beam from Russia to KM3NeT could enable CP violation measurements.

Upgrading the Protvino accelerator is necessary for competitive sensitivity.

Abstract

KM3NeT is a new generation neutrino telescope currently under construction at two sites in the Mediterranean Sea. At the Capo Passero site, 100 km off-shore Sicily, Italy, a volume of more than one cubic kilometre of water will be instrumented with optical sensors. This instrument, called ARCA, is optimized for observing cosmic sources of TeV and PeV neutrinos. The other site, 40 km off-shore Toulon, France, will host a much denser array of optical sensors, ORCA. With an energy threshold of a few GeV, ORCA will be capable to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy through precision measurements of atmospheric neutrino oscillations. In this contribution, we review the scientific goals of KM3NeT and the status of its construction. We also discuss the scientific potential of a neutrino beam from Protvino, Russia to ORCA. We show that such an experiment would allow for a measurement of the CP-violating phase in the neutrino mixing matrix. To achieve a sensitivity competitive with that of the other planned long-baseline neutrino experiments such as DUNE and T2HK, an upgrade of the Protvino accelerator complex will be necessary.