The Neutrino Factory and Beta Beam Experiments and Development

TL;DR

This paper discusses the potential of Neutrino Factory and Beta Beam facilities to revolutionize neutrino research by enabling precise measurements of neutrino properties, emphasizing recent R&D progress and future challenges.

Contribution

It introduces the concepts of Neutrino Factory and Beta Beam experiments, highlighting recent technological advancements and outlining the R&D needed for their development.

Findings

Neutrino Factory offers high sensitivity for neutrino measurements.

Beta Beam sensitivity depends on optimal energy and further study.

Significant R&D progress has been made in accelerator technology.

Abstract

The long-term prospects for fully exploring three-flavor mixing in the neutrino sector depend upon an ongoing and increased investment in the appropriate accelerator R&D. Two new concepts have been proposed that would revolutionize neutrino experiments, namely the Neutrino Factory and the Beta Beam facility. These new facilities would dramatically improve our ability to test the three-flavor mixing framework, measure \textsl{CP} violation in the lepton sector, and perhaps determine the neutrino mass hierarchy, and, if necessary, probe extremely small values of the mixing angle $\theta_{13}$. The stunning sensitivity that could be achieved with a Neutrino Factory is described, together with our present understanding of the corresponding sensitivity that might be achieved with a Beta Beam facility. In the Beta Beam case, additional study is required to better understand the optimum Beta Beam energy, and the achievable sensitivity. Neither a Neutrino Factory nor a Beta Beam facility could be built without significant R&D. An impressive Neutrino Factory R&D effort has been ongoing in the U.S. and elsewhere over the last few years and significant progress has been made towards optimizing the design, developing and testing the required accelerator components, and significantly reducing the cost. The recent progress is described here.