2004/08/31 by M. C. González-García, M. C. Gonzalez-Garcia, Michele Maltoni +2 · 11 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Neutrino Physics Research #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.70.093005
published as Phys.Rev.D70:093005,2004 · 20 pages, LaTeX2e file using RevTEX4, 6 figures and 1 table included
arxiv created 2004/09/02 · openalex publication_date 2004/11/11 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
The measurement of the deviation of the 2--3 leptonic mixing from maximal, D23\ensuremath≡1/2\ensuremath-sin2\ensuremathθ23, is one of the key issues for understanding the origin of the neutrino masses and mixing. In the 3\ensuremathν context we study the dependence of various observables in the atmospheric neutrinos on D23. We perform the global 3\ensuremathν-analysis of the atmospheric and reactor neutrino data taking into account the effects of both the oscillations driven by the solar parameters (\ensuremathΔm212 and \ensuremathθ12) and the 1--3 mixing. The departure from the one-dominant mass scale approximation results into the shift of the 2--3 mixing from maximal by \ensuremathΔsin2\ensuremathθ23\ensuremath≈0.04, so that D23\ensuremath∼0.04\ifmmode±\else\textpm\fi0.07 (1\ensuremathσ). Though the value of the shift is not statistically significant, the tendency of the allowed region to move towards smaller values of sin2\ensuremathθ23 is robust. The shift is induced by the excess of the e-like events in the sub-GeV sample. We show that future large scale water Cherenkov detectors can determine D23 with accuracy of a few percent, comparable with the sensitivity of future long-baseline experiments. Moreover, the atmospheric neutrinos will provide unique information on the sign of the deviation (octant of \ensuremathθ23).