Future Atmospheric Neutrino Detectors

TL;DR

Future atmospheric neutrino detectors aim to unambiguously observe neutrino oscillation patterns, distinguish oscillation types, and explore matter effects to advance understanding of neutrino properties and fundamental physics.

Contribution

This paper reviews proposed detector technologies and measurement techniques for future experiments targeting atmospheric neutrino oscillations and related phenomena.

Findings

Detection of unambiguous oscillation patterns is feasible with proposed detectors.

Discrimination between different neutrino oscillation channels is achievable.

Potential to measure the sign of delta m^2 through matter effects.

Abstract

Future experiments focusing on atmospheric neutrino detection are reviewed. One of the main goals of these experiments is the detection of an unambiguous oscillation pattern (nu_mu reappearance) to prove the oscillation hypothesis. Further goals include the discrimination of nu_mu - nu_tau and nu_mu - nu_sterile oscillations, and the detection of a potential small nu_mu - nu_e contribution. The search for matter effects in three or more flavour oscillations can be used to constrain hybrid oscillation models and potentially measure the sign of delta m^2. The detectors and measurement techniques proposed to achieve these goals are described, and their physics reach is discussed.