Recently it is advocated that high intensity and low energy (Eν~2 GeV ) neutrino beams should be built to probe the (13) mixing angle ϕ to a level of a few parts in 104. Experiments using such beams will have better signal-to-background ratio in searches for νμ→νe oscillations. We propose that such experiments can also determine the sign of Δ31 even if the beam consists of neutrinos only. By measuring the νμ→νe transitions in two different energy ranges, the effects due to propagation of neutrinos through earth's crust can be isolated and the sign of Δ31 can be determined. If the sensitivity of an experiment to ϕ is ε, then the same experiment is automatically sensitive to matter effects and the sign of Δ31 for values of ϕ≥2ε.
Matter effects on neutrino oscillations in long baseline experiments
