Determining the neutrino mass ordering and oscillation parameters with KM3NeT/ORCA

• Published in: The European Physical Journal C
• Main Authors: Aiello, S., Anguita López, Mancia, Díaz García, Antonio Francisco, López Coto, Daniel, Navas Concha, Sergio, Tenllado, Enrique, KM3NeT Collaboration
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Springer 2022
• Subjects: Orca
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10481/72634; https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-021-09893-0

The authors acknowledge the financial support of the funding agencies: Agence Nationale de la Recherche (contract ANR-15-CE31-0020), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Commission Europeenne (FEDER fund and Marie Curie Program), Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), LabEx UnivEarthS (ANR-10-LABX-0023 and ANR-18-IDEX-0001), Paris Ile-de-France Region, France; Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia (SRNSFG, FR-18-1268), Georgia; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Germany; The General Secretariat of Research and Technology (GSRT), Greece; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Ministero dell'Universita e della Ricerca (MIUR), PRIN 2017 program (Grant NAT-NET 2017W4HA7S) Italy; Ministry of Higher Education Scientific Research and Professional Training, ICTP through Grant AF-13, Morocco; Nederlandse organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), the Netherlands; The National Science Centre, Poland (2015/18/E/ST2/00758); National Authority for Scientific Research (ANCS), Romania; Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion, Investigacion y Universidades (MCIU): Programa Estatal de Generacion de Conocimiento (refs. PGC2018-096663-B-C41, -A-C42, -B-C43, -B-C44) (MCIU/FEDER), Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence and MultiDark Consolider (MCIU), Junta de Andalucia (ref. SOMM17/6104/UGR), Generalitat Valenciana: Grisolia (ref. GRISOLIA/2018/119) and GenT (ref. CIDEGENT/2018/034 and CIDEGENT/2019/043) programs, La Caixa Foundation (ref. LCF/BQ/IN17/11620019), EU: MSC program (ref. 713673), Spain. The next generation of water Cherenkov neutrino telescopes in the Mediterranean Sea are under construction offshore France (KM3NeT/ORCA) and Sicily (KM3NeT/ARCA). The KM3NeT/ORCA detector features an energy detection threshold which allows to collect atmospheric neutrinos to study flavour oscillation. This paper reports the KM3NeT/ORCA sensitivity to this phenomenon. The event reconstruction, selection and classification are described. The sensitivity to determine the neutrino mass ordering was evaluated and found to be 4.4 sigma if the true ordering is normal and 2.3 sigma if inverted, after 3 years of data taking. The precision to measure Delta m(32)(2) and theta(23) were also estimated and found to be 85.10(-6) eV(2) and ((+1.9)(-3.1))degrees for normal neutrino mass ordering and, 75.10(-6) eV(2) and ((+2.0)(-7.0))degrees for inverted ordering. Finally, a unitarity test of the leptonic mixing matrix by measuring the rate of tau neutrinos is described. Three years of data taking were found to be sufficient to exclude (nu)over-left-right-arrow tau event rate variations larger than 20% at 3 sigma level. French National Research Agency (ANR) ANR-15-CE31-0020 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) Commission Europeenne (FEDER fund), France Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), France LabEx UnivEarthS, France ANR-10-LABX-0023 ANR-18-IDEX-0001 Paris Ile-de-France Region, France Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia (SRNSFG), Georgia FR-18-1268 German Research Foundation (DFG) The General Secretariat of Research and Technology (GSRT), Greece Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR) PRIN 2017 program, Italy NAT-NET 2017W4HA7S Ministry of Higher Education Scientific Research and Professional Training, ICTP, Morocco AF-13 Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) Netherlands Government The National Science Centre, Poland 2015/18/E/ST2/00758 National Authority for Scientific Research (ANCS), Romania Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion, Investigacion y Universidades (MCIU): Programa Estatal de Generacion de Conocimiento, Spain PGC2018-096663-B-C41 PGC2018-096663-A-C42 PGC2018-096663-B-C43 PGC2018-096663-B-C44 Generalitat Valenciana: Grisolia program, Spain GRISOLIA/2018/119 La Caixa Foundation LCF/BQ/IN17/11620019 EU: MSC program, Spain 713673 Commission Europeenne (Marie Curie Program), France Generalitat Valenciana: GenT programs, Spain CIDEGENT/2018/034 CIDEGENT/2019/043 Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion, Investigacion y Universidades (MCIU): Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion, Investigacion y Universidades (MCIU): MultiDark Consolider (MCIU) Junta de Andalucia European Commission SOMM17/6104/UGR