Exploring the three flavor effects with future superbeams using liquid argon detectors

Abstract

Recent measurement of a moderately large value of θ13 signifies an important breakthrough in establishing the standard three flavor oscillation picture of neutrinos. It has provided an opportunity to explore the sub-dominant three flavor effects in present and future long-baseline experiments. In this paper, we perform a comparative study of the physics reach of two future superbeam facilities, LBNE and LBNO in their first phases of run, to resolve the issues of neutrino mass hierarchy, octant of θ13, and leptonic CP violation. We also find that the sensitivity of these future facilities can be improved significantly by adding the projected data from T2K and NO 0A. Stand-alone LBNO setup with a 10 kt detector has a mass hierarchy discovery reach of more than 7σ, for the lowest allowed value of sin2 θ13(true) = 0.34. This result is valid for any choice of trueδCP and hierarchy. LBNE10, in combination with T2K and NO ∨A, can achieve 3σ hierarchy discrimination for any choice of δ CP, sin2 θ13, and hierarchy. The same combination can provide a 3σ octant resolution for sin2 θ13(true) ≥ 0.44 or for sin2 θ13(true)≥ 0.58 for all values of δCP(true). LBNO can give similar results with 10 kt detector mass. In their first phases, both LBNE10 and LBNO with 20 kt detector can establish leptonic CP violation for around 50% values of true δCP at 2σ confidence level. In case of LBNE10, CP coverage at 3σ can be enhanced from 3% to 43% by combining T2K and NO∨A data, assuming sin2 θ13(true) = 0.5. For LBNO setup, CP violation discovery at 3σ is possible for 46% values of true σCP if we add the data from T2K and NO∨A. Open Access, © 2014 The Authors.