Speaker
Son Cao
(T)
Description
T2K (Tokai to Kamioka) is the world's first off-axis designed long-baseline
experiment that was built for precision measurements of neutrino oscillations.
The T2K experiment uses a high intensity, highly-pure beam of muon (anti)neutrinos
produced at J-PARC in Tokai, Japan. A Near Detector complex, 280 m downstream
of the target, is operated to monitor and characterize the (anti)neutrino
beam before the neutrinos oscillate. Neutrino oscillation patterns are observed
at the Super-Kamiokande detector, which is located 295 km away from the
neutrino production point at an angular offset of 2.5 degrees from the average
beam direction. In 2013, with just 8.4% of the total approved proton exposure
($7.8 \times 10^{21}$ protons-on-target (POT)), $\nu_{\mu} \rightarrow \nu_e$ appearance, a primary goal of
T2K, was discovered with $7.3\sigma$ significance. This result leads us to re-evaluate
the physics potential and possibility for extension of the T2K experiment. In
this report, T2K neutrino oscillation sensitivities are studied with a total exposure
of $ 30 \times 10^{21} $ POT, which can be achieved with a possible upgrade of the J-PARC beam power and T2K hardware, as well as improvements in analysis.
These studies will focus on T2K's ability to constrain neutrino oscillation
parameters, especially on the search for CP violation and determination of the
mass hierarchy.
Author
Laura Kormos
