LBNO-DEMO: Large-scale neutrino detector demonstrators for phased performance assessment in view of a long-baseline oscillation experiment
physics.ins-det
/ Authors
L. Agostino, B. Andrieu, R. Asfandiyarov, D. Autiero, O. Bésida, F. Bay, R. Bayes, A. M. Blebea-Apostu, A. Blondel, M. Bogomilov
and 105 more authors
S. Bolognesi, S. Bordoni, A. Bravar, M. Buizza-Avanzini, F. Cadoux, D. Caiulo, M. Calin, M. Campanelli, C. Cantini, L. Chaussard, D. Chesneanu, N. Colino, P. Crivelli, I. De Bonis, Y. Déclais, J. Dawson, C. De La Taille, P. Del Amo Sanchez, A. Delbart, S. Di Luise, D. Duchesneau, F. Dulucq, J. Dumarchez, I. Efthymiopoulos
/ Abstract
In June 2012, an Expression of Interest for a long-baseline experiment (LBNO) has been submitted to the CERN SPSC. LBNO considers three types of neutrino detector technologies: a double-phase liquid argon (LAr) TPC and a magnetised iron detector as far detectors. For the near detector, a high-pressure gas TPC embedded in a calorimeter and a magnet is the baseline design. A mandatory milestone is a concrete prototyping effort towards the envisioned large-scale detectors, and an accompanying campaign of measurements aimed at assessing the detector associated systematic errors. The proposed $6\times 6\times 6$m$^3$ DLAr is an industrial prototype of the design discussed in the EoI and scalable to 20 kton or 50~kton. It is to be constructed and operated in a controlled laboratory and surface environment with test beam access, such as the CERN North Area (NA). Its successful operation and full characterisation will be a fundamental milestone, likely opening the path to an underground deployment of larger detectors. The response of the DLAr demonstrator will be measured and understood with an unprecedented precision in a charged particle test beam (0.5-20 GeV/c). The exposure will certify the assumptions and calibrate the response of the detector, and allow to develop and to benchmark sophisticated reconstruction algorithms, such as those of 3-dimensional tracking, particle ID and energy flow in liquid argon. All these steps are fundamental for validating the correctness of the physics performance described in the LBNO EoI.