Study of a Long Baseline nu_tau Appearance Neutrino Oscillation Experiment in the Quasi-Elastic Regime

Abstract

We present a study for a design of a long baseline nu_mu to nu_tau appearance experiment to probe the high sin^2(2theta) and low Delta m^2 region relevant to explain the atmospheric neutrino anomaly. The experiment relies on a good identification of quasi-elastic interactions, which is a clean topology that has an important contribution in the lowest Delta m^2 part of the region probed. The detector we studied is a fine grained liquid scintillator detector of 15 kilotons, optimized to detect electrons from tau -> e bar(nu_e) nu_tau decays, while rejecting backgrounds from pi^0 in nu_mu interactions and electrons from the nu_e beam contamination. As a reference, the proposed nu_mu neutrino beam from CERN to Gran Sasso was used.