Speaker
Andreas Gross
(TUM)
Description
The determination of the neutrino mass hierarchy is among the most fundamental
questions in particle physics.
The recent measurement of a large mixing angle between the first and the third
neutrino mass eigenstate and the first observation of atmospheric neutrino
oscillations at tens of GeV with neutrino telescopes opens the intriguing new
possibility to exploit matter effects in neutrino oscillations for its determination.
A further extension of IceCube/DeepCore called PINGU (Precision IceCube Next
Generation Upgrade) has been recently envisioned with the ultimate goal to measure
this mass hierarchy. PINGU would consist of additional IceCube-like strings of
optical sensors deployed in the deepest clearest ice in the center of IceCube. More
densely deployed instrumentation would provide a threshold substantially below $10$
GeV and enhance the sensitivity to the mass hierarchy signal in atmospheric
neutrinos. We discuss the estimate of the PINGU sensitivity to the mass hierarchy.
Primary author
Andreas Gross
(TUM)
