Neutrino physics with JUNO

Fengpeng An, Guangpeng An, Qi An, Vito Antonelli, Eric Baussan, John Beacom, Leonid Bezrukov, Simon Blyth, Riccardo Brugnera, Margherita Buizza Avanzini, Jose Busto, Anatael Cabrera, Hao Cai, Xiao Cai, Antonio Cammi, Guofu Cao, Jun Cao, Yun Chang, Shaomin Chen, Shenjian ChenYixue Chen, Davide Chiesa, Massimiliano Clemenza, Barbara Clerbaux, Janet Conrad, Davide D'Angelo, Hervé De Kerret, Zhi Deng, Ziyan Deng, Yayun Ding, Zelimir Djurcic, Damien Dornic, Marcos Dracos, Olivier Drapier, Stefano Dusini, Stephen Dye, Timo Enqvist, Donghua Fan, Jian Fang, Laurent Favart, Richard Ford, Marianne Göger-Neff, Haonan Gan, Alberto Garfagnini, Marco Giammarchi, Maxim Gonchar, Guanghua Gong, Hui Gong, Michel Gonin, Marco Grassi, Christian Grewing, Mengyun Guan, Vic Guarino, Gang Guo, Wanlei Guo, Xin Heng Guo, Caren Hagner, Ran Han, Miao He, Yuekun Heng, Yee Hsiung, Jun Hu, Shouyang Hu, Tao Hu, Hanxiong Huang, Xingtao Huang, Lei Huo, Ara Ioannisian, Manfred Jeitler, Xiangdong Ji, Xiaoshan Jiang, Cécile Jollet, Li Kang, Michael Karagounis, Narine Kazarian, Zinovy Krumshteyn, Andre Kruth, Pasi Kuusiniemi, Tobias Lachenmaier, Rupert Leitner, Chao Li, Jiaxing Li, Weidong Li, Weiguo Li, Xiaomei Li, Xiaonan Li, Yi Li, Yufeng Li, Zhi Bing Li, Hao Liang, Guey-Lin Lin, Tao Lin, Yen Hsun Lin, Jiajie Ling, Ivano Lippi, Dawei Liu, Hongbang Liu, Hu Liu, Jianglai Liu, Jianli Liu, Jinchang Liu, Qian Liu, Shubin Liu, Shulin Liu, Paolo Lombardi, Yongbing Long, Haoqi Lu, Jiashu Lu, Jingbin Lu, Junguang Lu, Bayarto Lubsandorzhiev, Livia Ludhova, Shu Luo, Vladimir Lyashuk, Randolph Möllenberg, Xubo Ma, Fabio Mantovani, Yajun Mao, Stefano M. Mari, William F. McDonough, Guang Meng, Anselmo Meregaglia, Emanuela Meroni, Mauro Mezzetto, Lino Miramonti, Thomas Mueller, Dmitry Naumov, Lothar Oberauer, Juan Pedro Ochoa-Ricoux, Alexander Olshevskiy, Fausto Ortica, Alessandro Paoloni, Haiping Peng, Jen Chieh Peng, Ezio Previtali, Ming Qi, Sen Qian, Xin Qian, Yongzhong Qian, Zhonghua Qin, Georg Raffelt, Gioacchino Ranucci, Barbara Ricci, Markus Robens, Aldo Romani, Xiangdong Ruan, Xichao Ruan, Giuseppe Salamanna, Mike Shaevitz, Valery Sinev, Chiara Sirignano, Monica Sisti, Oleg Smirnov, Michael Soiron, Achim Stahl, Luca Stanco, Jochen Steinmann, Xilei Sun, Yongjie Sun, Dmitriy Taichenachev, Jian Tang, Igor Tkachev, Wladyslaw Trzaska, Stefan Van Waasen, Cristina Volpe, Vit Vorobel, Lucia Votano, Chung Hsiang Wang, Guoli Wang, Hao Wang, Meng Wang, Ruiguang Wang, Siguang Wang, Wei Wang, Yi Wang, Yifang Wang, Zhe Wang, Zheng Wang, Zhigang Wang, Zhimin Wang, Wei Wei, Liangjian Wen, Christopher Wiebusch, Björn Wonsak, Qun Wu, Claudia Elisabeth Wulz, Michael Wurm, Yufei Xi, Dongmei Xia, Yuguang Xie, Zhi Zhong Xing, Jilei Xu, Baojun Yan, Changgen Yang, Chaowen Yang, Guang Yang, Lei Yang, Yifan Yang, Yu Yao, Ugur Yegin, Frédéric Yermia, Zhengyun You, Boxiang Yu, Chunxu Yu, Zeyuan Yu, Sandra Zavatarelli, Liang Zhan, Chao Zhang, Hong Hao Zhang, Jiawen Zhang, Jingbo Zhang, Qingmin Zhang, Yu Mei Zhang, Zhenyu Zhang, Zhenghua Zhao, Yangheng Zheng, Weili Zhong, Guorong Zhou, Jing Zhou, Li Zhou, Rong Zhou, Shun Zhou, Wenxiong Zhou, Xiang Zhou, Yeling Zhou, Yufeng Zhou, Jiaheng Zou

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

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Abstract

The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), a 20 kton multi-purpose underground liquid scintillator detector, was proposed with the determination of the neutrino mass hierarchy (MH) as a primary physics goal. The excellent energy resolution and the large fiducial volume anticipated for the JUNO detector offer exciting opportunities for addressing many important topics in neutrino and astro-particle physics. In this document, we present the physics motivations and the anticipated performance of the JUNO detector for various proposed measurements. Following an introduction summarizing the current status and open issues in neutrino physics, we discuss how the detection of antineutrinos generated by a cluster of nuclear power plants allows the determination of the neutrino MH at a 3-4σ significance with six years of running of JUNO. The measurement of antineutrino spectrum with excellent energy resolution will also lead to the precise determination of the neutrino oscillation parameters sin2θ12, Δm212, and | Δmee2 to an accuracy of better than 1%, which will play a crucial role in the future unitarity test of the MNSP matrix. The JUNO detector is capable of observing not only antineutrinos from the power plants, but also neutrinos/antineutrinos from terrestrial and extra-terrestrial sources, including supernova burst neutrinos, diffuse supernova neutrino background, geoneutrinos, atmospheric neutrinos, and solar neutrinos. As a result of JUNO's large size, excellent energy resolution, and vertex reconstruction capability, interesting new data on these topics can be collected. For example, a neutrino burst from a typical core-collapse supernova at a distance of 10 kpc would lead to ∼5000 inverse-beta-decay events and ∼2000 all-flavor neutrino-proton ES events in JUNO, which are of crucial importance for understanding the mechanism of supernova explosion and for exploring novel phenomena such as collective neutrino oscillations. Detection of neutrinos from all past core-collapse supernova explosions in the visible universe with JUNO would further provide valuable information on the cosmic star-formation rate and the average core-collapse neutrino energy spectrum. Antineutrinos originating from the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium in the Earth can be detected in JUNO with a rate of ∼400 events per year, significantly improving the statistics of existing geoneutrino event samples. Atmospheric neutrino events collected in JUNO can provide independent inputs for determining the MH and the octant of the θ23 mixing angle. Detection of the 7Be and 8B solar neutrino events at JUNO would shed new light on the solar metallicity problem and examine the transition region between the vacuum and matter dominated neutrino oscillations. Regarding light sterile neutrino topics, sterile neutrinos with 10-5 eV2 < Δm412 < 10-2 eV2 and a sufficiently large mixing angle θ14 could be identified through a precise measurement of the reactor antineutrino energy spectrum. Meanwhile, JUNO can also provide us excellent opportunities to test the eV-scale sterile neutrino hypothesis, using either the radioactive neutrino sources or a cyclotron-produced neutrino beam. The JUNO detector is also sensitive to several other beyondthe-standard-model physics. Examples include the search for proton decay via the p → K+ + ν decay channel, search for neutrinos resulting from dark-matter annihilation in the Sun, search for violation of Lorentz invariance via the sidereal modulation of the reactor neutrino event rate, and search for the effects of non-standard interactions. The proposed construction of the JUNO detector will provide a unique facility to address many outstanding crucial questions in particle and astrophysics in a timely and cost-effective fashion. It holds the great potential for further advancing our quest to understanding the fundamental properties of neutrinos, one of the building blocks of our Universe.

Original languageEnglish
Article number030401
JournalJournal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics
Volume43
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 10 Feb 2016

Keywords

  • large scintillator detectors
  • neutrino astronomy
  • neutrino physics
  • reactor neutrino experiments

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