Quantifying the sensitivity of oscillation experiments to the neutrino mass ordering

Journal of High Energy Physics

Volumn 2014, Issue 3, 2014, Pages

  Blennow, Mattias ^a   Coloma, Pilar ^b   Huber, Patrick ^b   Schwetz, Thomas ^c,d  

^a ALBANOVA UNIVERSITY CENTER   (Sweden)

^b VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE AND STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^c MAX PLANCK INSTITUT FÜR KERNPHYSIK   (Germany)

^d STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY   (Sweden)

Author keywords

Neutrino Physics; Statistical Methods

Indexed keywords

EID: 84896457419     PISSN: 11266708     EISSN: 10298479     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/JHEP03(2014)028     Document Type: Article

References (95)

1. Particle Data Group collaboration, J. Beringer et al., Review of particle physics, Phys. Rev. D 86 (2012) 010001 [ INSPIRE ].
2. DAYA-BAY collaboration, F. An et al., Observation of electron- antineutrino disappearance at Daya Bay, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108 (2012) 171803 [ arXiv:1203.1669 ] [ INSPIRE ].
3. RENO collaboration, J. Ahn et al., Observation of Reactor Electron Antineutrino Disappearance in the RENO experiment, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108 (2012) 191802 [ arXiv:1204.0626 ] [ INSPIRE ].
4. Double CHOOZ collaboration, Y. Abe et al., Reactor electron antineutrino disappearance in the Double CHOOZ experiment, Phys. Rev. D 86 (2012) 052008 [ arXiv:1207.6632 ] [ INSPIRE ].
5. T2K collaboration, K. Abe et al., Evidence of electron neutrino appearance in a muon neutrino beam, Phys. Rev. D 88 (2013) 032002 [ arXiv:1304.0841 ] [ INSPIRE ].
6. T2K collaboration, K. Abe et al., The T2K experiment, Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A 659 (2011) 106 [ arXiv:1106.1238 ] [ INSPIRE ].
7. e oscillations in the NuMI beamline, hep-ex/0503053 [ INSPIRE ].
8. NOvA collaboration, R. Patterson, The NOvA experiment: status and outlook, Nucl. Phys. Proc. Suppl. 235-236 (2013) 151 [ arXiv:1209.0716 ] [ INSPIRE ].
9. LBNE collaboration, T. Akiri et al., The 2010 interim report of the long-baseline neutrino experiment collaboration physics working groups, arXiv:1110.6249 [ INSPIRE ].
10. LBNE collaboration, LBNE conceptual design report. Volume 1, http://lbne2-docdb.fnal.gov/cgi-bin/ShowDocument?docid=7525 (2012).
11. LBNE collaboration, C. Adams et al., Scientific opportunities with the long-baseline neutrino experiment, arXiv:1307.7335 [ INSPIRE ].
12. A. Stahl et al., Expression of Interest for a very long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment (LBNO), CERN-SPSC-2012-021 (2012).
13. ESSnuSB collaboration, E. Baussan et al., A very intense neutrino super beam experiment for leptonic CP-violation discovery based on the european spallation source Linac: a Snowmass 2013 white paper, arXiv:1309.7022 [ INSPIRE ].
14. IDS-NF collaboration, S. Choubey et al., International design study for the neutrino factory, interim design report, arXiv:1112.2853 [ INSPIRE ].
15. L. Wolfenstein, Neutrino oscillations in matter, Phys. Rev. D 17 (1978) 2369 [ INSPIRE ].
16. V.D. Barger, K. Whisnant, S. Pakvasa and R. Phillips, Matter effects on three-neutrino oscillations, Phys. Rev. D 22 (1980) 2718 [ INSPIRE ].
17. S. Mikheev and A.Y. Smirnov, Resonance amplification of oscillations in matter and spectroscopy of solar neutrinos, Sov. J. Nucl. Phys. 42 (1985) 913 [ INSPIRE ].
18. M. Freund, M. Lindner, S. Petcov and A. Romanino, Testing matter effects in very long baseline neutrino oscillation experiments, Nucl. Phys. B 578 (2000) 27 [ hep-ph/9912457 ] [ INSPIRE ].
19. V.D. Barger, S. Geer, R. Raja and K. Whisnant, Determination of the pattern of neutrino masses at a neutrino factory, Phys. Lett. B 485 (2000) 379 [ hep-ph/0004208 ] [ INSPIRE ].
20. X. Qian, J. Ling, R. McKeown, W. Wang, E. Worcester et al., A second detector focusing on the second oscillation maximum at an off-axis location to enhance the mass hierarchy discovery potential in LBNE10, arXiv:1307.7406 [ INSPIRE ].
21. LBNE collaboration, M. Bass et al., Baseline optimization for the measurement of CP-violation and mass hierarchy in a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment, arXiv:1311.0212 [ INSPIRE ].
22. V. Barger et al., Configuring the long-baseline neutrino experiment, Phys. Rev. D 89 (2014) 011302 [ arXiv:1307.2519 ] [ INSPIRE ].
23. S.K. Agarwalla, S. Prakash and S.U. Sankar, Exploring the three flavor effects with future superbeams using liquid argon detectors, arXiv:1304.3251 [ INSPIRE ].
24. NOvA collaboration, M. Messier, Extending the NOvA physics program, arXiv:1308.0106 [ INSPIRE ].
25. (13) and combined performance with a LArTPC and T2K, JHEP 12 (2012) 075 [ arXiv:1208.3644 ] [ INSPIRE ].
26. M. Blennow, P. Coloma, A. Donini and E. Fernandez-Martinez, Gain fractions of future neutrino oscillation facilities over T2K and NOvA, JHEP 07 (2013) 159 [ arXiv:1303.0003 ] [ INSPIRE ].
27. 13, JHEP 05 (2012) 154 [ arXiv:1109.6526 ] [ INSPIRE ].
28. 13, arXiv:1206.4038 [ INSPIRE ].
29. P. Coloma, E. Fernandez-Martinez and L. Labarga, Physics reach of CERN-based SuperBeam neutrino oscillation experiments, JHEP 11 (2012) 069 [ arXiv:1206.0475 ] [ INSPIRE ].
30. 13 era, Eur. Phys. J. C 73 (2013) 2392 [ arXiv:1209.5010 ] [ INSPIRE ].
31. M. Ghosh, P. Ghoshal, S. Goswami and S.K. Raut, Synergies between neutrino oscillation experiments: an 'adequate' configuration for LBNO, arXiv:1308.5979 [ INSPIRE ].
32. S. Petcov, Diffractive-like (or parametric resonance-like?) enhancement of the Earth (day-night) effect for solar neutrinos crossing the earth core, Phys. Lett. B 434 (1998) 321 [ hep-ph/9805262 ] [ INSPIRE ].
33. E.K. Akhmedov, Parametric resonance of neutrino oscillations and passage of solar and atmospheric neutrinos through the earth, Nucl. Phys. B 538 (1999) 25 [ hep-ph/9805272 ] [ INSPIRE ].
34. E.K. Akhmedov, A. Dighe, P. Lipari and A. Smirnov, Atmospheric neutrinos at Super-Kamiokande and parametric resonance in neutrino oscillations, Nucl. Phys. B 542 (1999) 3 [ hep-ph/9808270 ] [ INSPIRE ].
35. M. Chizhov, M. Maris and S. Petcov, On the oscillation length resonance in the transitions of solar and atmospheric neutrinos crossing the Earth core, hep-ph/9810501 [ INSPIRE ].
36. M. Chizhov and S. Petcov, New conditions for a total neutrino conversion in a medium, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83 (1999) 1096 [ hep-ph/9903399 ] [ INSPIRE ].
37. M. Banuls, G. Barenboim and J. Bernabeu, Medium effects for terrestrial and atmospheric neutrino oscillations, Phys. Lett. B 513 (2001) 391 [ hep-ph/0102184 ] [ INSPIRE ].
38. IceCube, PINGU collaboration, M. Aartsen et al., PINGU sensitivity to the neutrino mass hierarchy, arXiv:1306.5846 [ INSPIRE ].
39. Km3Net, P. Coyle et al., ORCA (Oscillation Research with Cosmics in the Abyss). A feasibility study for a neutrino mass hierarchy measurement with the KM3NeT-Phase 1 neutrino telescope in the Mediterranean Sea, contribution to the European Strategy Preparatory Group Symposium, September 9-12, Krakow, Poland (2012).
40. INO, India-based Neutrino Observatory, http://www.ino.tifr.res.in/ino/.
41. A. Ghosh and S. Choubey, Measuring the mass hierarchy with muon and hadron events in atmospheric neutrino experiments, JHEP 10 (2013) 174 [ arXiv:1306.1423 ] [ INSPIRE ].
42. O. Mena, I. Mocioiu and S. Razzaque, Neutrino mass hierarchy extraction using atmospheric neutrinos in ice, Phys. Rev. D 78 (2008) 093003 [ arXiv:0803.3044 ] [ INSPIRE ].
43. E. Fernandez-Martinez, G. Giordano, O. Mena and I. Mocioiu, Atmospheric neutrinos in ice and measurement of neutrino oscillation parameters, Phys. Rev. D 82 (2010) 093011 [ arXiv:1008.4783 ] [ INSPIRE ].
44. E.K. Akhmedov, S. Razzaque and A.Y. Smirnov, Mass hierarchy, 2-3 mixing and CP-phase with huge atmospheric neutrino detectors, JHEP 02 (2013) 082 [Erratum ibid. 1307 (2013) 026] [ arXiv:1205.7071 ] [ INSPIRE ].
45. S.K. Agarwalla, T. Li, O. Mena and S. Palomares-Ruiz, Exploring the Earth matter effect with atmospheric neutrinos in ice, arXiv:1212.2238 [ INSPIRE ].
46. D. Franco et al., Mass hierarchy discrimination with atmospheric neutrinos in large volume ice/water Cherenkov detectors, JHEP 04 (2013) 008 [ arXiv:1301.4332 ] [ INSPIRE ].
47. M. Ribordy and A.Y. Smirnov, Improving the neutrino mass hierarchy identification with inelasticity measurement in PINGU and ORCA, Phys. Rev. D 87 (2013) 113007 [ arXiv:1303.0758 ] [ INSPIRE ].
48. W. Winter, Neutrino mass hierarchy determination with IceCube-PINGU, Phys. Rev. D 88 (2013) 013013 [ arXiv:1305.5539 ] [ INSPIRE ].
49. M. Blennow and T. Schwetz, Determination of the neutrino mass ordering by combining PINGU and Daya Bay II, JHEP 09 (2013) 089 [ arXiv:1306.3988 ] [ INSPIRE ].
50. S.-F. Ge, K. Hagiwara and C. Rott, A novel approach to study atmospheric neutrino oscillation, arXiv:1309.3176 [ INSPIRE ].
51. 2 with a massive magnetized detector for atmospheric neutrinos, Eur. Phys. J. C 24 (2002) 43 [ hep-ph/0202232 ] [ INSPIRE ].
52. 13, neutrino mass hierarchy and iron magnetized detectors, Nucl. Phys. B 712 (2005) 392 [ hep-ph/0406096 ] [ INSPIRE ].
53. D. Indumathi and M. Murthy, A question of hierarchy: matter effects with atmospheric neutrinos and anti-neutrinos, Phys. Rev. D 71 (2005) 013001 [ hep-ph/0407336 ] [ INSPIRE ].
54. S. Petcov and T. Schwetz, Determining the neutrino mass hierarchy with atmospheric neutrinos, Nucl. Phys. B 740 (2006) 1 [ hep-ph/0511277 ] [ INSPIRE ].
55. A. Samanta, The mass hierarchy with atmospheric neutrinos at INO, Phys. Lett. B 673 (2009) 37 [ hep-ph/0610196 ] [ INSPIRE ].
56. R. Gandhi et al., Mass hierarchy determination via future atmospheric neutrino detectors, Phys. Rev. D 76 (2007) 073012 [ arXiv:0707.1723 ] [ INSPIRE ].
57. J. Kopp and M. Lindner, Detecting atmospheric neutrino oscillations in the ATLAS detector at CERN, Phys. Rev. D 76 (2007) 093003 [ arXiv:0705.2595 ] [ INSPIRE ].
58. M. Blennow and T. Schwetz, Identifying the neutrino mass ordering with INO and NOvA, JHEP 08 (2012) 058 [Erratum ibid. 1211 (2012) 098] [ arXiv:1203.3388 ] [ INSPIRE ].
59. A. Ghosh, T. Thakore and S. Choubey, Determining the neutrino mass hierarchy with INO, T2K, NOvA and reactor experiments, JHEP 04 (2013) 009 [ arXiv:1212.1305 ] [ INSPIRE ].
60. S. Petcov and M. Piai, The LMA MSW solution of the solar neutrino problem, inverted neutrino mass hierarchy and reactor neutrino experiments, Phys. Lett. B 533 (2002) 94 [ hep-ph/0112074 ] [ INSPIRE ].
61. Y. Wang, Daya Bay II: current status and future plan, talk at Daya Bay II meeting, January 11, IHEP, Shenzhen, China (2013).
62. Y.-F. Li, J. Cao, Y. Wang and L. Zhan, Unambiguous determination of the neutrino mass hierarchy using reactor neutrinos, Phys. Rev. D 88 (2013) 013008 [ arXiv:1303.6733 ] [ INSPIRE ].
63. International Workshop on "RENO-50" toward Neutrino Mass Hierarchy, June 13-14, Seoul National University, Korea (2013), http://home.kias.re.kr/MKG/h/reno50/.
64. e3| with a new reactor neutrino experiment, Astropart. Phys. 18 (2003) 565 [ hep-ex/0203013 ] [ INSPIRE ].
65. S. Choubey, S. Petcov and M. Piai, Precision neutrino oscillation physics with an intermediate baseline reactor neutrino experiment, Phys. Rev. D 68 (2003) 113006 [ hep-ph/0306017 ] [ INSPIRE ].
66. 13 with a remote detector of reactor antineutrinos, Phys. Rev. D 78 (2008) 071302 [ hep-ex/0612022 ] [ INSPIRE ].
67. L. Zhan, Y. Wang, J. Cao and L. Wen, Determination of the neutrino mass hierarchy at an intermediate baseline, Phys. Rev. D 78 (2008) 111103 [ arXiv:0807.3203 ] [ INSPIRE ].
68. L. Zhan, Y. Wang, J. Cao and L. Wen, Experimental requirements to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy using reactor neutrinos, Phys. Rev. D 79 (2009) 073007 [ arXiv:0901.2976 ] [ INSPIRE ].
69. P. Ghoshal and S. Petcov, Neutrino mass hierarchy determination using reactor antineutrinos, JHEP 03 (2011) 058 [ arXiv:1011.1646 ] [ INSPIRE ].
70. X. Qian, D. Dwyer, R. McKeown, P. Vogel, W. Wang et al., Mass hierarchy resolution in reactor anti-neutrino experiments: parameter degeneracies and detector energy response, Phys. Rev. D 87 (2013) 033005 [ arXiv:1208.1551 ] [ INSPIRE ].
71. S.-F. Ge, K. Hagiwara, N. Okamura and Y. Takaesu, Determination of mass hierarchy with medium baseline reactor neutrino experiments, JHEP 05 (2013) 131 [ arXiv:1210.8141 ] [ INSPIRE ].
72. E. Ciuffoli, J. Evslin and X. Zhang, Optimizing medium baseline reactor neutrino experiments, Phys. Rev. D 88 (2013) 033017 [ arXiv:1302.0624 ] [ INSPIRE ].
73. A. Balantekin et al., Neutrino mass hierarchy determination and other physics potential of medium-baseline reactor neutrino oscillation experiments, arXiv:1307.7419 [ INSPIRE ].
74. F. Capozzi, E. Lisi and A. Marrone, Neutrino mass hierarchy and electron neutrino oscillation parameters with one hundred thousand reactor events, Phys. Rev. D 89 (2014) 013001 [ arXiv:1309.1638 ] [ INSPIRE ].
75. X. Qian et al., Statistical evaluation of experimental determinations of neutrino mass hierarchy, Phys. Rev. D 86 (2012) 113011 [ arXiv:1210.3651 ] [ INSPIRE ].
76. E. Ciuffoli, J. Evslin and X. Zhang, Confidence in a neutrino mass hierarchy determination, JHEP 01 (2014) 095 [ arXiv:1305.5150 ] [ INSPIRE ].
77. 13 and CP-violation will be discovered in future neutrino oscillation experiments?, Phys. Lett. B 648 (2007) 54 [ hep-ph/0612223 ] [ INSPIRE ].
78. M. Blennow, On the Bayesian approach to neutrino mass ordering, JHEP 01 (2014) 139 [ arXiv:1311.3183 ] [ INSPIRE ].
79. G. Cowan, K. Cranmer, E. Gross and O. Vitells, Asymptotic formulae for likelihood-based tests of new physics, Eur. Phys. J. C 71 (2011) 1554 [ arXiv:1007.1727 ] [ INSPIRE ].
80. S.S. Wilks, The large-sample distribution of the likelihood ratio for testing composite hypotheses, Annals Math. Statist. 9 (1938) 60.
81. G.J. Feldman and R.D. Cousins, A Unified approach to the classical statistical analysis of small signals, Phys. Rev. D 57 (1998) 3873 [ physics/9711021 ] [ INSPIRE ].
82. J. Neyman and E.S. Pearson, On the problem of the most efficient tests of statistical hypotheses, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond. A 231 (1933) 289.
83. 13 workshop, February 11-12, University of Pittsburgh, U.S.A. (2013).
84. M. Gonzalez-Garcia, M. Maltoni, J. Salvado and T. Schwetz, Global fit to three neutrino mixing: critical look at present precision, JHEP 12 (2012) 123 [ arXiv:1209.3023 ] [ INSPIRE ].
85. P. Huber, M. Lindner, T. Schwetz and W. Winter, First hint for CP-violation in neutrino oscillations from upcoming superbeam and reactor experiments, JHEP 11 (2009) 044 [ arXiv:0907.1896 ] [ INSPIRE ].
86. B. Choudhary, INO, talk given at the Project X Physics Study workshop, June 14-23, Fermilab, U.S.A. (2012).
87. LBNE collaboration, LBNE homepage, http://dx.doi.org/lbne.fnal.gov.
88. P. Ballett and S. Pascoli, Understanding the performance of the low energy neutrino factory: the dependence on baseline distance and stored-muon energy, Phys. Rev. D 86 (2012) 053002 [ arXiv:1201.6299 ] [ INSPIRE ].
89. E. Christensen, P. Coloma and P. Huber, Physics performance of a low-luminosity low energy neutrino factory, arXiv:1301.7727 [ INSPIRE ].
90. G.L. Fogli and E. Lisi, Tests of three flavor mixing in long baseline neutrino oscillation experiments, Phys. Rev. D 54 (1996) 3667 [ hep-ph/9604415 ] [ INSPIRE ].
91. J. Bian, The NOvA experiment: overview and status, arXiv:1309.7898 [ INSPIRE ].
92. R. Patterson and R. Rameika, private communication.
93. P. Huber, M. Lindner and W. Winter, Simulation of long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments with GLoBES (General Long Baseline Experiment Simulator), Comput. Phys. Commun. 167 (2005) 195 [ hep-ph/0407333 ] [ INSPIRE ].
94. P. Huber, J. Kopp, M. Lindner, M. Rolinec and W. Winter, New features in the simulation of neutrino oscillation experiments with GLoBES 3.0: General Long Baseline Experiment Simulator, Comput. Phys. Commun. 177 (2007) 432 [ hep-ph/0701187 ] [ INSPIRE ].
95. M. Blennow and E. Fernandez-Martinez, Neutrino oscillation parameter sampling with MonteCUBES, Comput. Phys. Commun. 181 (2010) 227 [ arXiv:0903.3985 ] [ INSPIRE ].