Emulsion Chamber with Big Radiation Length for Detecting Neutrino Oscillations

Abstract

A conceptual scheme of a hybrid-emulsion spectrometer for investigating various channels of neutrino oscillations is proposed. The design emphasizes detection of $\tau$ leptons by detached vertices, reliable identification of electrons, and good spectrometry for all charged particles and photons. A distributed target is formed by layers of low-Z material, emulsion-plastic-emulsion sheets, and air gaps in which $\tau$ decays are detected. The tracks of charged secondaries, including electrons, are momentum-analyzed by curvature in magnetic field using hits in successive thin layers of emulsion. The $\tau$ leptons are efficiently detected in all major decay channels, including \xedec. Performance of a model spectrometer, that contains 3 tons of nuclear emulsion and 20 tons of passive material, is estimated for different experimental environments. When irradiated by the $\nu_\mu$ beam of a proton accelerator over a medium baseline of $<L/E_\nu > \sim 1$ km/GeV, the spectrometer will efficiently detect either the \omutau and \omue transitions in the mass-difference region of $\Delta m^2 \sim 1$ eV$^2$, as suggested by the results of LSND. When exposed to the neutrino beam of a muon storage ring over a long baseline of $<L/E_\nu > \sim$ 10-20 km/GeV, the model detector will efficiently probe the entire pattern of neutrino oscillations in the region $\Delta m^2 \sim 10^{-2}-10^{-3}$ eV$^2$, as suggested by the data on atmospheric neutrinos.