Long Base-Line Neutrino Oscillation Beams and Experiments
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481 LONG BASE-LINE NEUTRINO OSCILLATION BEAMS AND EXPERIMENTS Stavros Katsanevas University of Athens 104 Solonos, GR-106 80 Athens. Abstract Strong interest has recently been shown in very long base-line neutrino beams1 directed at existing or planned massivedetector facilities, in order to extend the search forneutrino oscil lations. There are currently proposed experiments in the U.S, Japan and Europe. Among such possibilities are beams from CERN pointing towards the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory in Italy and the NESTOR Underwater Laboratory in the Ionian Sea off the west coast of the Peloponnese. After a brief review of the long baseline beam possibilities in the U.S and Japan, the basic parameters of a CERN beam are studied. A number of possible configurations cov ering a range of neutrino energy bands are studied and estimates of the neutrino fluxes, event rates and backgrounds at typical detectors are reported. A neutrino oscillation search down to limits of sin2 0.01 and could be made with currently proposed detectors. 20 � �m2 � O.OOleV2 482 1 Introduction The relatively old idea of a long baselineaccelerator beam pointing to a detector located tens to hundreds of kilometers away hasevolved from the phase of first estimations [l] to that of realistic designs and detailed proposals [2]. Further, results of the KAMIOKANDE, !MB, and SOUDAN [3] collaborations suggest that perhaps as much as 40 % of the atmospheric v" events in the energy range from 0.2-1.5 GeV have oscillated to some other type of neutrino. On then other hand, FREJUS [4] did not record any effect. The recent 'multi-GeV' studies by KAMIOKANDE [5], have confirmed their previous result, and have even shown an azimuthal distribution of the ratio ;;,:- consistent with avµ --+ v, or vµ --+ vr oscillation signal. Clearly one would like to continue with controlled beam experiments because they have the fo llowing advantages over atmospheric data: Initial flavourcom position well known (typically 11, is 1% of 11µ ), Control of the energy. One can typically obtain beam energy dispersions of as � 5 GeV One can assume the direction cosines and time of arrival of the neutrino, improving efficiency and reducing backgrounds substantially Higher statistics, giving sensitivity to lower mixing angles Control of the beam polarity. One can switch between v and ;;; beams to study matter enhanced oscillation (MSW) effects [6]). 2 Currently proposed beams and experiments The possibilities of long base-line beams are under active study in the US and Japan. In the US the two main proposals are: a beam from the Fe rmilab 120 GeV Main Injector to the Soudan underground laboratory at 732 km distance (MINOS proposal) [7] and the 24 GeV Brookhaven proton beam to sites up to 68 km on Long-Island [9]. There is also a Japanese proposal [10] of a beam from KEK {12 GeV) to Superkamiokande, 250 km away. MINOS The Collaboration [7] proposes to conduct a search for IIµ --+ v, and IIµ --+ llr oscillations detected by the comparison of signals in a "near" detector at Fermilab and a "far" detector at the Soudan site. A new 10 kt {36m long,4m radius) detector consisting of a sandwich of 4 cm thick octagonal steel plates separated by 2 cm gaps of active elements in a toroidal magnetic field of � 1.5 Tesla will be built at Soudan. In a standard year they expect ') 3.7xl020 protons on the target. They propose two focusing scenarii: a wide-band beam horn-reflector system peaking at 10 GeV in Ev and delivering 2100 111, Charged Current (CC) events per kiloton-year at the far detector and a narrow-band beam , using lithium lenses that can be tuned between 10 GeV and 30 GeV in Ev with energy spread of ±15%. The 11, backgrounds are estimated to be in both beams less than 1%. The decay tunnel, they presently favour, is 800m long and has lm radius. The near detector will have the same granularity and detector technology as the far detector. Simulations show that the neutrino energy spectrum in the center of the beam (� 25 cm radius) will be similar to that of the far detector. They will be able to start taking data in 2001. The existing high resolution lkt detector Soudan2 [8] in the same site, can provide an independent test with lower statistics. Among the lower energy proposals the Japanese proposal [10] proposes a setup where the 12 GeV proton beam of KEK after a 90 degrees bend is directed to 3 water cherenkov detectors and a near fine-grained detector. Their fiducial masses and distances are 1.6 ton at 500m, 2kt at 25 km and 22kt at 250 km (the Super-Kamioka detector). A fine grained detector of 10 tons will be positionned immediately in front of the first cherenkov detector. There is a horn focusing and the decay pipe is 200m long and l.5m in radius. For a total 1020 protons on target, which corresponds to 2-3 years of running, more than 500 CC events will be observed in the 22 kt fiducial volume for Super-Kamioka, 1700 CC events at the intermediate detector and 8000 CC events in the near detector. The 11, contamination is estimated to be less than 0.7% of the 111, flux. They wish to start taking data during 1999. Assuming protons on target every seconds for seconds/year l) 4xl013 l.9 l.75xl07 483 BNL The second low energy proposal 889 uses the BNL AGS. The experiment will search for vµ oscillations by means of four identical 4.6 kton {18m high, 9m radius) water Cherenkov neutrino detectors located 1,3, 24 and 68 km from the AGS neutrino source. The experiment will capitalize on the advantages of AGS: a) high 28 GeV proton beam intensity (6xl013 p per pulse every 1.6 sec) and narrow time-structure (8 bunches per pulse, 20-30ns wide) of the fast extracted protom beam to permit the detectors to be loacted on the earths surface. They have requested 102l protons on the target. A key aspect particular to this design, involves placing the detectors 1.5 degrees offthe center line of the neutrino beam, in order to obtain a lower neutrino mean energy (� 1 GeV). They use a double horn focusing sustem and the neutrinos are produced in a decay pipe 180m long having a radius of l.5m at the far end. For the above integrated luminosity they expect 2.2xl03, l.8xl04, ll.5xl05, and 10.3xl06 quasi-elastic muon events in decreasing order of distance in the 4 detectors. They also expect 4.5xl02, 3.6xl03, 23.2xl04, and 20.7xl05 neutral current events respectively. They could be ready to start ir0 taking data by the year 2000. Interest in a long baseline neutrino beam from CERN has been stimulated by the fact that as part of the LHC project at CERN, new transfer lines are required to bring fast extracted protons from the SPS to the LHC. It has been shown [11] that it would be possible to derive a neutrino beam from the Tl 87 line linking SPS-LSS4 to the LHC/LEP ring near point 8. Two substantial neutrino detector facilities exist or are under development which lie in the general direction of such a beam: the Gran Sasso underground laboratory (in particular the ICARUS detector [12]) at a dis tance of 731 km, azimuth 122.502 and declination 3.283 degrees w.r.t CERN. The proposal describes a 5 kt liquid argon TPC detector. An intermediate, fu nded, 600 ton detector will be ready to take data2l in 2 years time. the deep ( 4000m below sea level) underwater neutrino laboratory NESTOR [13] in the Mediterranean at a distance of 1676 km, azimuth 124.1775 and declination 8.526 degrees w.r.t CERN. The NESTOR protype module under construction consists of a 200 kton tower (32m diameter,240m height) having 12 floors distant by 20m with sparse photomultiplier (14/floor) coverage. It will be deployed during 1997. 3) The directional angles from CERN differ by 1.68 degrees in azimuth and 5.24 degrees in declination [14]. The possibility of providing neutrino beams to both of these facilities using common or shared beam equipment is clearly attractive; one cannot avoid though the cost of two decay tunnels. 3 CERN Beam simulation A. Ball et al. [15] use GEANT [16] to fully simulate the beam line with realistic values for material thicknesses, magnetic field strengths, secondary interaction effects, absorption and multiple scattering in all materials. Incident proton beams of different energy (80, 120, 160 and 450 GeV) have been simulated. They were assumed to have a normal intensity distribution with a = 0.5 mm at a multiply segmented beryllium target of 3 mm diameter and 80-120 cm overall length. A major systematic uncertainty in estimating neutrino fluxes is the model of hadronic interactions used to obtain the production spectra. Three production models have been com pared, GHEISHA [17], FLUKA [18] and a thermodynamic model using fitted parameters [19]. The thermodynamic model compared to FLUKA/GHEISHA underestimates by 50% the neu trino flux, but it is known that no attempt hasbeen made to fitparameters to experimental data below 25% of the proton energy. FLUKA was chosen as the production model since it appears to be more consistently checked against experimental data. Production spectra from GHEISHA are higher than FLUKA by 25-30 %. However, without experimental particle production data The limits reported in the last section correspond to year of protons on target of this detector 2l l 2xl019 The limits presented at the last section concern a modification of the present prototype which has a) modules 3) of 5m inter-floor distance, b) twice the number of photomultipliers per floor and c} floors twisted in angle for uniform space coverage.