Prospects of Very Long Base-Line Neutrino Oscillation Experiments with the JAERI-KEK High Intensity Proton Accelerator

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss physics potential of the Very Long Base-Line (VLBL) Neutrino-Oscillation Experiments with the High Intensity Proton Accelerator (HIPA), which is planned to be built by 2006 in Tokaimura, Japan. We propose to use conventional narrow-band \nu_\mu beams (NBB) from HIPA for observing the \nu_\mu \to \nu_e transition probability and the \nu_\mu survival probability. The pulsed NBB allows us to obtain useful information through counting experiments at a huge water-Cherenkov detector which may be placed in our neighbor countries. We study sensitivity of such an experiment to the neutrino mass hierarchy, the mass-squared differences, the mixing angles and the CP phase of the 3\times 3 lepton flavor mixing matrix (MNS matrix). The CP phase can be measured with a 100kt detector if both the mass-squared difference and U_{e3} elements of the MNS matrix are sufficiently large.