Exploring the three flavor effects with future superbeams using liquid argon detectors

SK Agarwalla, S Prakash, SU Sankar - Journal of High Energy Physics, 2014 - Springer
Journal of High Energy Physics, 2014Springer
A bstract Recent measurement of a moderately large value of θ 13 signifies an important
breakthrough in establishing the standard three flavor oscillation picture of neutrinos. It has
provided an opportunity to explore the sub-dominant three flavor effects in present and
future long-baseline experiments. In this paper, we perform a comparative study of the
physics reach of two future superbeam facilities, LBNE and LBNO in their first phases of run,
to resolve the issues of neutrino mass hierarchy, octant of θ 23, and leptonic CP violation …
Abstract
Recent measurement of a moderately large value of θ 13 signifies an important breakthrough in establishing the standard three flavor oscillation picture of neutrinos. It has provided an opportunity to explore the sub-dominant three flavor effects in present and future long-baseline experiments. In this paper, we perform a comparative study of the physics reach of two future superbeam facilities, LBNE and LBNO in their first phases of run, to resolve the issues of neutrino mass hierarchy, octant of θ 23, and leptonic CP violation. We also find that the sensitivity of these future facilities can be improved significantly by adding the projected data from T2K and NOνA. Stand-alone LBNO setup with a 10 kt detector has a mass hierarchy discovery reach of more than 7σ, for the lowest allowed value of sin 2 θ 23 (true)= 0.34. This result is valid for any choice of true δ CP and hierarchy. LBNE10, in combination with T2K and NOνA, can achieve 3σ hierarchy discrimination for any choice of δ CP, sin 2 θ 23, and hierarchy. The same combination can provide a 3σ octant resolution for sin 2 θ 23 (true)≤ 0.44 or for sin 2 θ 23 (true)≥ 0.58 for all values of δ CP (true). LBNO can give similar results with 10 kt detector mass. In their first phases, both LBNE10 and LBNO with 20 kt detector can establish leptonic CP violation for around 50% values of true δ CP at 2σ confidence level. In case of LBNE10, CP coverage at 3σ can be enhanced from 3% to 43% by combining T2K and NOνA data, assuming sin 2 θ 23 (true)= 0.5. For LBNO setup, CP violation discovery at 3σ is possible for 46% values of true δ CP if we add the data from T2K and NOνA.
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