Measuring the Neutrino Mass Ordering and other oscillation parameters with KM3NeT-ORCA

• Published in: Proceedings of 35th International Cosmic Ray Conference — PoS(ICRC2017)
• Main Authors: Kouchner, Antoine, Coelho, Joao
• Other Authors: AstroParticule et Cosmologie (APC (UMR_7164)), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris Cité (UPCité), KM3NeT
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2017
• Subjects: neutrino: mass; neutrino: interaction; neutrino: atmosphere; neutrino: detector; neutrino: sterile; matter: oscillation; KM3NeT; optical; sensitivity; Cherenkov counter; photomultiplier; electron; cascade; tracks; muon; site; [PHYS.ASTR]Physics [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]; Orca
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-01890926; https://doi.org/10.22323/1.301.1027

International audience ORCA (Oscillations Research with Cosmics in the Abyss) is the low-energy branch of KM3NeT,the next generation underwater Cherenkov neutrino detector in the Mediterranean. Its primarygoal is to resolve the long-standing unsolved question of whether the neutrino mass orderingis normal or inverted by measuring matter oscillation effects with atmospheric neutrinos. TheORCA design foresees a dense configuration of KM3NeT detection units, optimised for studyingthe interactions of neutrinos in seawater at low (< 100 GeV) energies. To be deployed atthe French KM3NeT site, ORCA’s multi-PMT optical modules will exploit the excellent opticalproperties of deep seawater to accurately reconstruct both cascade (mostly electron neutrinos)and track events (mostly muon neutrinos) with a few GeV of energy. This contribution discussesthe potential of the ORCA detector both in neutrino mass ordering studies and in obtaining newconstraints on other key parameters such as theta_23. New sensitivity studies of exotic oscillationphenomena such as sterile neutrinos and non-standard interactions are also presented