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Invited review: Physics potential of the ICAL detector at the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO)
Date Issued
01-05-2017
Author(s)
Kumar, A.
Kumar, A. M.Vinod
Jash, Abhik
Mohanty, Ajit K.
Chacko, Aleena
Ajmi, Ali
Ghosal, Ambar
Khatun, Amina
Raychaudhuri, Amitava
Dighe, Amol
Chatterjee, Animesh
Gaur, Ankit
Ghosh, Anushree
Kumar, Ashok
Redij, Asmita
Satyanarayana, B.
Acharya, B. S.
Choudhary, Brajesh C.
Ranganathaiah, C.
Ravikumar, C. D.
Gupta, Chandan
Indumathi, D.
Kaur, Daljeet
Majumdar, Debasish
Samuel, Deepak
Tiwari, Deepak
Rajasekaran, G.
Gangopadhyay, Gautam
Majumder, Gobinda
Ravikumar, H. B.
Singh, J. B.
Shahi, J. S.
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Singh, Jyotsna
Raveendrababu, K.
Meghna, K. K.
Rebin, K. R.
Kar, Kamalesh
Bhattacharya, Kolahal
Pant, Lalit M.
Athar, M. Sajjad
Murthy, M. V.N.
Malik, Manzoor A.
Naimuddin, M. D.
Salim, Mohammad
Ghosh, Monojit
Devi, Moon Moon
Mondal, Naba K.
Majumdar, Nayana
Sinha, Nita
Dash, Nitali
Ghoshal, Pomita
Mehta, Poonam
Behera, Prafulla
Kanishka, R.
Gandhi, Raj
Ganai, Rajesh
Hasan, Rashid
Krishnaveni, S.
Lakshmi, S. M.
Singh, S. K.
Inbanathan, S. S.R.
Sankar, S. Uma
Jafer, Sadiq
Biswas, Saikat
Kumar, Sanjeev
Agarwalla, Sanjib Kumar
Choubey, Sandhya
Saha, Satyajit
Ahmed, Shakeel
Behera, Shiba Prasad
Goswami, Srubabati
Chattopadhyay, Subhasis
Bhattacharya, Sudeb
Banerjee, Sudeshna
Dasgupta, Sudeshna
Pal, Sumanta
Mukhopadhyay, Supratik
Raut, Sushant
Bose, Suvendu
Mahapatra, Swapna
Ghosh, Tapasi
Thakore, Tarak
Kashyap, V. K.S.
Subrahmanyam, V. S.
Singh, Venktesh
Chandratre, Vinay B.
Bhatnagar, Vipin
Datar, Vivek M.
Bari, Waseem
Viyogi, Y. P.
Abstract
The upcoming 50 kt magnetized iron calorimeter (ICAL) detector at the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) is designed to study the atmospheric neutrinos and antineutrinos separately over a wide range of energies and path lengths. The primary focus of this experiment is to explore the Earth matter effects by observing the energy and zenith angle dependence of the atmospheric neutrinos in the multi-GeV range. This study will be crucial to address some of the outstanding issues in neutrino oscillation physics, including the fundamental issue of neutrino mass hierarchy. In this document, we present the physics potential of the detector as obtained from realistic detector simulations. We describe the simulation framework, the neutrino interactions in the detector, and the expected response of the detector to particles traversing it. The ICAL detector can determine the energy and direction of the muons to a high precision, and in addition, its sensitivity to multi-GeV hadrons increases its physics reach substantially. Its charge identification capability, and hence its ability to distinguish neutrinos from antineutrinos, makes it an efficient detector for determining the neutrino mass hierarchy. In this report, we outline the analyses carried out for the determination of neutrino mass hierarchy and precision measurements of atmospheric neutrino mixing parameters at ICAL, and give the expected physics reach of the detector with 10 years of runtime. We also explore the potential of ICAL for probing new physics scenarios like CPT violation and the presence of magnetic monopoles.
Volume
88