The ORCA Option for KM3NeT

Abstract

It has recently been suggested that the neutrino mass hierarchy can be experimentally determined from the oscillation pattern of atmospheric neutrinos passing through the Earth by measuring the two-dimensional arrival pattern of neutrinos in energy and zenith angle, in the energy regime of about 3-20 GeV. ORCA (Oscillation Research with Cosmics in the Abyss) is a study addressing the feasibility of such a measurement employing the deep-sea neutrino telescope technology developed for the KM3NeT project. In the following, the underlying physics and resulting experimental signatures will be discussed and some aspects of the ongoing simulation studies presented. A preliminary sensitivity estimate derived from a simplified study strongly indicates that an exposure of at least 20 Mton-years will be required to arrive at conclusive results.

Proceedings prepared for the 15th International Workshop on Neutrino Telescopes, 11-15 Mar 2013, Venice, Italy (C13-03-11.5); 10 pages, 9 figures

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Physics Potential of the ICAL detector at the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO)
• What can be learned from a future supernova neutrino detection?
• Neutrino Mass Hierarchy
• Prompt neutrino fluxes in the atmosphere with PROSA parton distribution functions
• Neutrino Oscillation Studies with Reactors
• Spectrometry of the Earth using Neutrino Oscillations
• 3-flavor and 4-flavor implications of the latest T2K and NO$\nu$A electron (anti-)neutrino appearance results
• Dark Matter Searches for Monoenergetic Neutrinos Arising from Stopped Meson Decay in the Sun
• PINGU and the neutrino mass hierarchy: Statistical and systematic aspects
• Detection techniques and investigation of different neutrino experiments
• Synergies and Prospects for Early Resolution of the Neutrino Mass Ordering
• On the detection of neutrinos from solar flares using pion-decay photons to provide a time window template
• Overview on Neutrino Theory and Phenomenology