Abstract
We study the advantages of a second identical detector at a medium baseline reactor neutrino experiment. A major obstruction to the determination of the neutrino mass hierarchy is the detector’s unknown nonlinear energy response, which even under optimistic assumptions reduces the sensitivity to the hierarchy by about at a single detector experiment. Various energy response models are considered at one- and two-detector experiments with the same total target mass. A second detector at a sufficiently different baseline eliminates this reduction. Considering the unknown energy response, we find the sensitivity to the hierarchy at various candidate detector locations for JUNO and RENO 50. The best site for JUNO’s near detector is under ZiLuoShan, 17 and 66 km from the Yangjiang and Taishan reactor complexes, respectively. We briefly describe other advantages, including a more precise determination of and the possibility of a -inspired program to measure the -violating phase using a single pion source about 10 km from one detector and 20 km from the other. Two identical half-sized detectors provide a better energy resolution than a single detector, further increasing the sensitivity to the hierarchy.
- Received 13 September 2013
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.89.073006
© 2014 American Physical Society