Wednesday, February 1, 2012

1201.6299 (Peter Ballett et al.)

Understanding the performance of the low energy neutrino factory: the
dependence on baseline distance and stored-muon energy
   [PDF]

Peter Ballett, Silvia Pascoli
Motivated by recent hints of large {\theta}13 from the T2K, MINOS and Double
Chooz experiments, we study the physics reach of a Low Energy Neutrino Factory
(LENF) and its dependence on the chosen baseline distance, L, and stored-muon
energy, E_{\mu}, in order to ascertain the configuration of the optimal LENF.
In particular, we study the performance of the LENF over a range of baseline
distances from 1000 km to 4000 km and stored-muon energies from 4 GeV to 25
GeV, connecting the early studies of the LENF (1300 km, 4.5 GeV) to those of
the conventional, high-energy neutrino factory design (4000 km and 7000 km, 25
GeV). Three different magnetized detector options are considered: a
Totally-Active Scintillator Detector (TASD) and two models of a liquid-argon
detector distinguished by optimistic and conservative performance estimates. In
order to compare the sensitivity of each set-up, we compute the full
{\delta}-dependent discovery contours for the determination of non-zero
{\theta}13, CP-violating values of {\delta} and the mass hierarchy. In the case
of large {\theta}13 with sin^2(2*{\theta}13) = (few)*10^{-3}, the LENF provides
a strong discovery potential over the majority of the L-E_{\mu} parameter space
and is a promising candidate for the future generation of long baseline
experiments aimed at discovering CP-violation and the mass hierarchy, and at
making a precise determination of the oscillation parameters.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.6299

No comments:

Post a Comment