2008/07/24 by Raj Gandhi, Pomita Ghoshal, Srubabati Goswami +3 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Neutrino Physics Research #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.78.073001
published as Phys.Rev.D78:073001,2008 · 13 pages, 3 figures, typing error in the abstract corrected, no other change
arxiv created 2008/07/24 · openalex publication_date 2008/10/02 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We explore the potential offered by large-mass liquid argon detectors for determination of the sign of \ensuremathΔm312, or the neutrino mass hierarchy, through interactions of atmospheric neutrinos. We give results for a 100 kT sized magnetized detector which provides separate sensitivity to \ensuremathν_\ensuremathμ, \ensuremathν_\ensuremathμ and, over a limited energy range, to \ensuremathνe, \ensuremathνe. We also discuss the sensitivity for the unmagnetized version of such a detector. After including the effect of smearing in neutrino energy and direction and incorporating the relevant statistical, theoretical, and systematic errors, we perform a binned \ensuremathχ2 analysis of simulated data. The \ensuremathχ2 is marginalized over the presently allowed ranges of neutrino parameters and determined as a function of \ensuremathθ13. We find that such a detector offers superior capabilities for hierarchy resolution, allowing a >4\ensuremathσ determination for a 100 kT detector over a 10-year running period for values of sin22\ensuremathθ13\ensuremath≥0.05. For an unmagnetized detector, a 2.5\ensuremathσ hierarchy sensitivity is possible for sin22\ensuremathθ13=0.04.