Towards a precision measurement of theta13 with reactor neutrinos: Initiatives in the United States

Recent experimental results have provided unambiguous evidence that neutrinos have a small but finite mass and mix from one type into another. The phenomenon of neutrino mixing is characterized by the coupling between the neutrino flavor (nu e,mu,tau) and mass eigenstates (nu 1,2,3) and the associated mixing angles. Previous neutrino oscillation experiments have determined two of the three mixing angles in the neutrino mixing matrix, U MNSP. Using multiple neutrino detectors placed at different distances from a nuclear power plant, a future reactor neutrino experiment has the potential to discover and measure the coupling of the electron neutrino flavor to the third mass eigenstate, Ue3, the last undetermined element of the neutrino mixing matrix. In this paper we describe recent efforts in the US towards a next-generation experiment to measure theta13 with reactor neutrinos