Speaker
Mr
Ushak Rahaman
(IIT Bombay)
Description
The moderately large value of $\theta_{13}$, measured recently
by reactor experiments, is very welcome
news for upcoming accelerator experiments. In particular,
the NO$\nu$A experiment, with 3 years of $\nu$ run followed
by an equal $\bar{\nu}$ run, will be able to
determine the mass hierarchy if one of the following
two favorable combinations is true:
normal hierarchy with $-180^\circ \leq \dcp \leq 0$ or
inverted hierarchy with $0\leq \dcp \leq 180^\circ$.
In this work, we study the hierarchy reach of the
first 3 years of NO$\nu$A data.
Since $\sin^2 2 \theta_{23}$ is measured to be non-maximal,
$\theta_{23}$ can be either in the lower or higher octant.
The true octant of $\theta_{23}$ has a deep impact on the
hierarchy reach of early NO$\nu$A data.
With the present
uncertainty of $10\%$ in $\sin^2 2 \theta_{13}$,
equal 1.5 year $\nu$ and $\bar{\nu}$ runs have better
hierarchy determination capability compared to a
pure 3 year $\nu$ run. Daya Bay expects to reduce
the uncertainty in $\sin^22\theta_{13}$ to $5\%$. Such a
reduction improves the hierarchy reach of a 3 year
$\nu$ run for two of the four octant-hierarchy combinations,
but still fails to give any sensitivity for the other two.
However, equal 1.5 year $\nu$ and $\bar{\nu}$ runs have reasonable
hierarchy sensitivity for all four combinations.
Primary author
Mr
Ushak Rahaman
(IIT Bombay)
Co-authors
Mr
Suprabh Prakash
(IIT Bombay)
Mr
Uma Sankar Sankhagiri
(IIT Bombay)
