Long-Baseline Study of the Leading Neutrino Oscillation at a Neutrino Factory

TL;DR

This study explores the potential of a neutrino factory to measure neutrino oscillation parameters, including mass hierarchy and mixing angles, through detailed analysis of neutrino appearance and survival rates.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of neutrino oscillation measurements at a neutrino factory, highlighting optimal conditions and the ability to determine the sign of elta m^2 with matter effects.

Findings

Matter effects can determine the sign of elta m^2.

Survival spectrum measurements can determine elta m^2 with 1-2% precision.

Both positive and negative muons are essential for sign determination.

Abstract

Within the framework of three-flavor neutrino oscillations, we consider the physics potential of \nu_e --> \nu_\mu appearance and \nu_\mu --> \nu_\mu survival measurements at a neutrino factory for a leading oscillation scale \delta m^2 ~ 3.5 \times 10^{-3} eV^2. Event rates are evaluated versus baseline and stored muon energy, and optimal values discussed. Over a sizeable region of oscillation parameter space, matter effects would enable the sign of \delta m^2 to be determined from a comparison of \nu_e --> \nu_\mu with \bar\nu_e --> \bar\nu_\mu event rates and energy distributions. It is important, therefore, that both positive and negative muons can be stored in the ring. Measurements of the \nu_\mu --> \nu_\mu survival spectrum could determine the magnitude of \delta m^2 and the leading oscillation amplitude with a precision of O(1%--2%).