KM3NeT-ORCA: Oscillation Research with Cosmics in the Abyss

• Published in: Journal of Physics: Conference Series
• Main Author: Coyle, Paschal
• Other Authors: Centre de Physique des Particules de Marseille (CPPM), Aix Marseille Université (AMU)-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), KM3NeT
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2016
• Subjects: [PHYS.PHYS.PHYS-INS-DET]Physics [physics]/Physics [physics]/Instrumentation and Detectors [physics.ins-det]; [PHYS.ASTR.HE]Physics [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]/High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena [astro-ph.HE]; [PHYS]Physics [physics]; [PHYS.HPHE]Physics [physics]/High Energy Physics - Phenomenology [hep-ph]; [PHYS.HEXP]Physics [physics]/High Energy Physics - Experiment [hep-ex]; Orca
• Online Access: https://hal.in2p3.fr/in2p3-01427749; https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/888/1/012024

27th International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics (Neutrino 2016) International audience KM3NeT, currently under construction in the abysses of the Mediterranean Sea, is a distributed research infrastructure that will host a km3-scale neutrino telescope (ARCA) for high-energy neutrino astronomy, and a megaton scale detector (ORCA) for neutrino oscillation studies of atmospheric neutrinos. ORCA is optimised for a measurement of the mass hierarchy, providing a sensitivity of 3{\sigma} after 3-4 years. It will also measure the atmospheric mixing parameters $\Delta m_{32}^2$ and $\theta_{23}$ with a precision comparable to the NOvA and T2K experiments using both the muon neutrino disappearance and tau neutrino appearance channels. It will provide a measurement of the tau neutrino appearance rate with better than 10% precision, a crucial ingredient for tests of unitarity. It will probe the octant of the mixing angle $\theta_{23}$ via matter resonance effects on neutrinos and antineutrinos crossing the core and mantle, which are largely independent on the CP phase. The observation of neutrino oscillations over a wide range of baselines and energies will provide broad sensitivity to new physics such as non-standard neutrino interactions (NSI) and sterile neutrinos.