An Expression of Interest to Build a MiniBooNE Near Detector: BooNE

Technical Report · Tue May 26 04:00:00 EDT 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/2571223· OSTI ID:2571223

Garvey, G. T. ^[1]; Louis, W. C. ^[1]; Mauger, C. ^[1]; Mills, G. B. ^[1]; Pavlovic, Z. ^[1]; Van de Water, R. ^[1]; White, D. H. ^[1]; Zeller, G. P. ^[1]

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1. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

The MiniBooNE experiment observes an unexplained excess of electron-like events at low energies in neutrino mode, which may be due, for example, to either a neutral current radiative interaction or to neutrino oscillations involving sterile neutrinos and which may be related to the LSND signal. No excess of electron-like events, however, is observed so far at low energies in antineutrino mode. In order to test whether the low-energy excess is due to neutrino oscillations, we propose building a second MiniBooNE detector at (or moving the existing MiniBooNE detector to) a distance of $$\sim$$ 200 m from the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) production target. With identical detectors at different distances, most of the systematic errors will cancel when taking a ratio of events in the two detectors, as the neutrino flux varies as $$1/r^{2}$$ to good approximation. This will allow a precision test for both $$\nu_{e}$$ and $$\bar{\nu}_{e}$$ appearance oscillations and $$\nu_{\mu}$$ and $$\bar{\nu}_{\mu}$$ disappearance oscillations. Furthermore, a comparison between oscillations in neutrino mode and antineutrino mode will allow a sensitive search for CP and CPT violation in the lepton sector at short baseline ($$\Delta m^{2} > 0.1$$ eV$$^{2}$$). Finally, by comparing the rates for a NC reaction, such as NC $$\pi^{0}$$ scattering or NC elastic scattering, a direct search for sterile neutrinos will be made.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: 89243024CSC000002
• OSTI ID: 2571223
• Report Number(s): FERMILAB-EOI--2009-01; oai:inspirehep.net:2939324
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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