Neutrino mass hierarchy and electron neutrino oscillation parameters with one hundred thousand reactor events

Abstract

Proposed medium-baseline reactor neutrino experiments offer unprecedented opportunities to probe, at the same time, the mass-mixing parameters which govern ${\nu }_e$ 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.

25 pages, including 19 figures

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Cited by in corpus (43)

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• Comprehensive geoneutrino analysis with Borexino
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• A framework for testing leptonic unitarity by neutrino oscillation experiments
• Reference worldwide model for antineutrinos from reactors
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• Leptonic Unitarity Triangles
• Neutrino mass hierarchy and precision physics with medium-baseline reactors: Impact of energy-scale and flux-shape uncertainties
• PINGU and the neutrino mass hierarchy: Statistical and systematic aspects
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• Perceiving the crust in 3D: a model integrating geological, geochemical, and geophysical data
• Damping signatures at JUNO, a medium-baseline reactor neutrino oscillation experiment
• Constraining Majorana CP Phase in Precision Era of Cosmology and Double Beta Decay Experiment
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• The formalism of neutrino oscillations: an introduction
• Hybrid method to resolve the neutrino mass hierarchy by supernova (anti)neutrino induced reactions
• Probing Neutrino Mass Hierarchy by Comparing the Charged-Current and Neutral-Current Interaction Rates of Supernova Neutrinos
• Constraint on Neutrino Decay with Medium-Baseline Reactor Neutrino Oscillation Experiments
• A new way to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy at reactors
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• Some comments on high precision study of neutrino oscillations
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• Enhancing the sensitivity to neutrino oscillation parameters using synergy between T2K, NO$\nu$A and JUNO
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• On Possibility of Determining Neutrino Mass Hierarchy by the Charged-Current and Neutral-Current Events of Supernova Neutrinos in Scintillation Detectors
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• Comments on the determination of the neutrino mass ordering in reactor neutrino experiments
• Extracting Mass Hierarchy Information from Simple Analysis of Neutrino Mass Splitting