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Register a new userDetermining the Neutrino Mass Hierarchy with INO, T2K, NOvA and Reactor Experiments
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The relatively large measured value of $theta_{13}$ has opened up the possibility of determining the neutrino mass hierarchy through earth matter effects. Amongst the current accelerator-based experiments only NOvA has a long enough baseline to observe earth matter effects. However, NOvA is plagued with uncertainty on the knowledge of the true value of $delta_{CP}$, and this could drastically reduce its sensitivity to the neutrino mass hierarchy. The earth matter effect on atmospheric neutrinos on the other hand is almost independent of $delta_{CP}$. The 50 kton magnetized Iron CALorimeter at the India-based Neutrino Observatory (ICAL@INO) will be observing atmospheric neutrinos. The charge identification capability of this detector gives it an edge over others for mass hierarchy determination through observation of earth matter effects. We study in detail the neutrino mass hierarchy sensitivity of the data from this experiment simulated using the Nuance based generator developed for ICAL@INO and folded with the detector resolutions and efficiencies obtained by the INO collaboration from a full Geant4-based detector simulation. The data from ICAL@INO is then combined with simulated data from T2K, NOvA, Double Chooz, RENO and Daya Bay experiments and a combined sensitivity study to the mass hierarchy is performed. With 10 years of ICAL@INO data combined with T2K, NOvA and reactor data, one could get about $2.3sigma-5.7sigma$ discovery of the neutrino mass hierarchy, depending on the true value of $sin^2theta_{23}$ [0.4 -- 0.6], $sin^22theta_{13}$ [0.08 -- 0.12] and $delta_{CP}$ [0 -- 2$pi$].
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The Coulomb enhancement of low energy electrons in nuclear beta decay generates sharp cutoffs in the accompanying antineutrino spectrum at the beta decay endpoint energies. It has been conjectured that these features will interfere with measuring the effect of a neutrino mass hierarchy on an oscillated nuclear reactor antineutrino spectrum. These sawtooth-like features will appear in detailed reactor antineutrino spectra, with characteristic energy scales similar to the oscillation period critical to neutrino mass hierarchy determination near a 53 km baseline. However, these sawtooth-like distortions are found to contribute at a magnitude of only a few percent relative to the mass hierarchy-dependent oscillation pattern in Fourier space. In the Fourier cosine and sine transforms, the features that encode a neutrino mass hierarchy dominate by over sixteen (thirty-three) times in prominence to the maximal contribution of the sawtooth-like distortions from the detailed energy spectrum, given $3.2%/sqrt{E_mathrm{vis.}/mathrm{MeV}}$ (perfect) detector energy resolution. The effect of these distortions is shown to be negligible even when the uncertainties in the reactor spectrum, oscillation parameters, and counting statistics are considered. This result is shown to hold even when the opposite hierarchy oscillation patterns are nearly degenerate in energy space, if energy response nonlinearities are controlled to below 0.5%. Therefore with accurate knowledge of detector energy response, the sawtooth-like features in reactor antineutrino spectra will not significantly impede neutrino mass hierarchy measurements using reactor antineutrinos.
The combination of current large scale structure and cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies data can place strong constraints on the sum of the neutrino masses. Here we show that future cosmic shear experiments, in combination with CMB constraints, can provide the statistical accuracy required to answer questions about differences in the mass of individual neutrino species. Allowing for the possibility that masses are non-degenerate we combine Fisher matrix forecasts for a weak lensing survey like Euclid with those for the forthcoming Planck experiment. Under the assumption that neutrino mass splitting is described by a normal hierarchy we find that the combination Planck and Euclid will possibly reach enough sensitivity to put a constraint on the mass of a single species. Using a Bayesian evidence calculation we find that such future experiments could provide strong evidence for either a normal or an inverted neutrino hierachy. Finally we show that if a particular neutrino hierachy is assumed then this could bias cosmological parameter constraints, for example the dark energy equation of state parameter, by > 1sigma, and the sum of masses by 2.3sigma.
Proposed medium-baseline reactor neutrino experiments offer unprecedented opportunities to probe, at the same time, the mass-mixing parameters which govern $ u_e$ oscillations both at short wavelength (delta m^2 and theta_{12}) and at long wavelength (Delta m^2 and theta_{13}), as well as their tiny interference effects related to the mass hierarchy (i.e., the relative sign of Delta m^2 and delta m^2). In order to take full advantage of these opportunities, precision calculations and refined statistical analyses of event spectra are required. In such a context, we revisit several input ingredients, including: nucleon recoil in inverse beta decay and its impact on energy reconstruction and resolution, hierarchy and matter effects in the oscillation probability, spread of reactor distances, irreducible backgrounds from geoneutrinos and from far reactors, and degeneracies between energy scale and spectrum shape uncertainties. We also introduce a continuous parameter alpha, which interpolates smoothly between normal hierarchy (alpha=+1) and inverted hierarchy (alpha=-1). The determination of the hierarchy is then transformed from a test of hypothesis to a parameter estimation, with a sensitivity given by the distance of the true case (either alpha=+1 or alpha=-1) from the undecidable case (alpha=0). Numerical experiments are performed for the specific set up envisaged for the JUNO project, assuming a realistic sample of O(10^5) reactor events. We find a typical sensitivity of ~2 sigma to the hierarchy in JUNO, which, however, can be challenged by energy scale and spectrum shape systematics, whose possible conspiracy effects are investigated. The prospective accuracy reachable for the other mass-mixing parameters is also discussed.
Precision measurement of the neutrino mixing parameters and the determination of mass hierarchy are the primary goals of the present and upcoming neutrino experiments. In this work, we study the sensitivity of T2K,NO$ u$A and LBNE experiments to discover leptonic CP violation and the determination of neutrino mass hierarchy. We obtain the correlation between the CP violating phase $delta_{CP}$ and the mixing angles $theta_{13}$, $theta_{23}$ and the sensitivity to determine the octant of atmospheric mixing angle $theta_{23}$. The entire analysis is done for a total 10 years (5$ u$+ 5$bar u$) of running of T2K, NO$ u$A and LBNE experiments. Furthermore, we also consider the impact of cross section uncertainties on the CP violation sensitivity of LBNE experiment.
We propose to search for light $U(1)$ dark photons, $A$, produced via kinetically mixing with ordinary photons via the Compton-like process, $gamma e^- rightarrow A e^-$, in a nuclear reactor and detected by their interactions with the material in the active volumes of reactor neutrino experiments. We derive 95% confidence-level upper limits on $epsilon$, the $A$-$gamma$ mixing parameter, $epsilon$, for dark-photon masses below 1$sim$MeV of $epsilon~< ~1.3times 10^{-5}$ and $epsilon~<~2.1times 10^{-5}$, from NEOS and TEXONO experimental data, respectively. This study demonstrates the applicability of nuclear reactors as potential sources of intense fluxes of low-mass dark photons.
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