Determination of the ${\theta }_{23}$ octant in LBNO

Abstract

According to the recent results of the neutrino oscillation experiment MINOS, the neutrino mixing angle ${\theta }_{23}$ may not be maximal ($45^{\circ }$). Two nearly degenerate solutions are possible, one in the lower octant (LO) where ${\theta }_{23}<45^{\circ }$, and one in the higher octant (HO) where ${\theta }_{23}>45^{\circ }$. Long baseline experiments measuring the ${\nu }_{\mu }\to {\nu }_e$ are capable of resolving this degeneracy. In this work we study the potential of the planned European LBNO experiment to distinguish between the LO and HO solutions.

Comments: 12 pages, 8 figures in two sets