The image β-Beam revisited Original Research Article

We study the performance of image β-Beam setups based on the decays of 8B and 8Li as a function of the achievable production fluxes and compare them with the “standard” setups based on 18Ne and 6He decays. For the standard setup we also investigate the physics potential for reduced 18Ne fluxes, since it seems experimentally challenging to achieve the baseline numbers. We find that, contrary to the standard setup, setups based in 8B and 8Li can be sensitive to the mass hierarchy down to values of image by themselves, due to the stronger matter effects granted by the higher energy of the neutrinos. On the other hand, the longer baseline required for neutrinos to oscillate at these higher energies reduces the statistics at the detector and fluxes around three times larger are required to reach the sensitivity to image and CP violation for the smallest values of image that the standard setup provides. We also studied the required suppression factor of the atmospheric background. In all the setups studied, we found that a suppression factor of image is equivalent to removing completely the atmospheric background. Suppression factors of order image do not imply a significant loss in sensitivity while suppressions of image still allow good CP discovery potential if image and the flux is not too low.