Neutrino Oscillation Physics Potential of the T2K Experiment

October 16, 2014

The observation of the recent electron neutrino appearance in a muon neutrino beam and the high-precision measurement of the mixing angle θ13 have led to a re-evaluation of the physics potential of the T2K long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment. Sensitivities are explored for CP violation in neutrinos, non-maximal sin223, the octant of θ23, and the mass hierarchy, in addition to the measurements of δCP, sin2θ23, and Δm232, for various combinations of neutrino-mode and anti-neutrino-mode data-taking.
With an exposure of 7.8×1021~protons-on-target, T2K can achieve 1-σ resolution of 0.050(0.054) on sin2θ23 and 0.040(0.045)×10−3 eV2 on Δm232 for 100%(50%) neutrino beam mode running assuming sin2θ23=0.5 and Δm232=2.4×10−3 eV2. T2K will have sensitivity to the CP-violating phase δCP at 90% C.L. or better over a significant range. For example, if sin223 is maximal (i.e θ23=45°) the range is −115°<δCP<−60° for normal hierarchy and +50°<δCP<+130° for inverted hierarchy. When T2K data is combined with data from the NOνA experiment, the region of oscillation parameter space where there is sensitivity to observe a non-zero δCP is substantially increased compared to if each experiment is analyzed alone.