A very intense neutrino super beam experiment for leptonic CP violation discovery based on the European spallation source linac

Summary, in English

Very intense neutrino beams and large neutrino detectors will be needed in order to enable the discovery of CP violation in the leptonic sector. We propose to use the proton linac of the European Spoliation Source currently under construction in Lund, Sweden, to deliver, in parallel with the spoliation neutron production, a very intense, cost effective and high performance neutrino beam. The baseline program for the European Spoliation Source linac is that it will be fully operational at 5 MW average power by 2022, producing 2 GeV 2.86 ms long proton pulses at a rate of 14 Hz. Our proposal is to upgrade the linac to 10 MW average power and 28 Hz, producing 14 pulses/s for neutron production and 14 pulses/s for neutrino production. Furthermore, because of the high current required in the pulsed neutrino horn, the length of the pulses used for neutrino production needs to be compressed to a few mu s with the aid of an accumulator ring. A long baseline experiment using this Super Beam and a megaton underground Water Cherenkov detector located in existing mines 300-600 km from Lund will make it possible to discover leptonic CP violation at 5 sigma significance level in up to 50% of the leptonic Dirac CP-violating phase range. This experiment could also determine the neutrino mass hierarchy at a significance level of more than 3 sigma if this issue will not already have been settled by other experiments by then. The mass hierarchy performance could be increased by combining the neutrino beam results with those obtained from atmospheric neutrinos detected by the same large volume detector. This detector will also be used to measure the proton lifetime, detect cosmological neutrinos and neutrinos from supernova explosions. Results on the sensitivity to leptonic CP violation and the neutrino mass hierarchy are presented. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

• Author: E. Baussan; M. Blennow; M. Bogomilov; E. Bouquerel; O. Caretta; Joakim Cederkäll; Peter Christiansen; P. Coloma; P. Cupial; Håkan Danared; T. Davenne; C. Densham; M. Dracos; T. Ekelof; Mohammad Eshraqi; E. Fernandez Martinez; G. Gaudiot; Richard Hall-Wilton; J. -P. Koutchouk; Mats Lindroos; P. Loveridge; R. Matev; David McGinnis; M. Mezzetto; Ryoichi Miyamoto; L. Mosca; T. Ohlsson; H. Ohman; F. Osswald; Steve Peggs; P. Poussot; R. Ruber; J. Y. Tang; R. Tsenov; G. Vankova-Kirilova; N. Vassilopoulos; D. Wilcox; E. Wildner; J. Wurtz
• Department/s: Department of Physics; European Spallation Source ESS AB
• Publishing year: 2014
• Language: English
• Pages: 127-149
• Publication/Series: Nuclear Physics, Section B
• Volume: 885
• Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nuclphysb.2014.05.016
• Document type: Journal article
• Publisher: North-Holland
• Topic: Subatomic Physics
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 0550-3213