CERN Accelerating science

Preprint
Report number	hep-ex/9701007 ; CERN-PPE-96-181 ; CERN-PPE-96-181
Title	Conceptual study of an "anti-tagged" experiment searching for $\nu _\mu \to \nu _e$ oscillation
Author(s)	Ludovici, Lucio (CERN) ; Zucchelli, Piero (CERN)
Affiliation	(CERN)
Publication	1997
Imprint	5 Dec 1996
Number of pages	17
Note	Submitted to Nucl.Instrum.Meth.A Submitted to Nucl.Instrum.Meth.A
Published in:	Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., A
Subject category	Detectors and Experimental Techniques
Abstract	We study the conceptual feasibility of a high energy, ``short baseline'', zero background experiment to search for muon-neutrino --> electron-neutrino oscillations and fully covering the area where the LSND experiment claims evidence. The natural electron-neutrino background of the muon-neutrino beam, from K and mu decays in the decay tunnel, is suppressed by a hadron blind detector that vetoes, by time coincidence, a possible electron-neutrino signal in the neutrino detector (anti-tagging technique). We discuss this new idea and we study a possible implementation in the old neutrino line of the PS accelerator, which at CERN offers the ideal $L/E$ ratio. In the anti-tagged muon-neutrino beam, the electron-neutrino contamination can be reduced by more than two orders of magnitude over conventional beams, down to 5*10 {-5}. In an ideal appearance experiment using a 300 t detector one would expect after two years 112 events according to the LSND result, with a background of 1.1-2.4 events. In case of a negative search, the 90% C.L. upper limit in the mixing angle would be sin 2 < 1.8*10 {-4}$ for large Delta(m 2) and Delta(m 2) <3.3*10 {-2} eV 2 for maximal mixing.
Other source	Inspire
Submitted by	[email protected]