Unambiguous Determination of the Neutrino Mass Hierarchy Using Reactor Neutrinos

Abstract

Determination of the neutrino mass hierarchy in a reactor neutrino experiment at medium baseline is discussed. Observation of the interference effects between the Δm^2_{31} and Δm^2_{32} oscillations enables a relative measurement independent of the knowledge of the absolute mass-squared difference. With a 20 kton liquid scintillator detector of 3%/\sqrt{E(MeV)} energy resolution, the Daya Bay II Experiment at a baseline of \sim 50 km from reactors of total thermal power 36 GW can determine the mass hierarchy at a confidence level of Δχ^2_{MH} \sim (10-12) (3-3.5 σ) in 6 years after taking into account the real spatial distribution of reactor cores. We show that the unknown residual energy non-linearity of the liquid scintillator detector has limited impact on the sensitivity due to the self-calibration of small oscillation peaks. Furthermore, an extra increase of Δχ^2_{MH} \simeq 4(9) can be obtained, by including the precise measurement of the effective mass-squared difference Δm^2_{μμ} of expected relative error 1.5% (1%) from ongoing long-baseline muon neutrino disappearance experiments. The sensitivities from the interference and from absolute measurements can be cross checked. When combining these two, the mass hierarchy can be determined at a confidence level of Δχ^2_{MH} \sim (15-20) (4 σ) in 6 years.

14 pages, 7 figures, more discussions and references added, PRD in press