  We aim at characterizing the accretion properties of several hundred members
of the star-forming cluster NGC 2264 (3 Myr). We performed a deep u,g,r,i
mapping and a simultaneous u+r monitoring of the region with CFHT/MegaCam in
order to directly probe the accretion process from UV excess measurements.
Photometric properties and stellar parameters are determined homogeneously for
about 750 monitored young objects, spanning the mass range 0.1-2 Mo. About 40%
are classical (accreting) T Tauri stars, based on various diagnostics (H_alpha,
UV and IR excesses). The remaining non-accreting members define the
(photospheric+chromospheric) reference UV emission level over which flux excess
is detected and measured. We revise the membership status of cluster members
based on UV accretion signatures and report a new population of 50 CTTS
candidates. A large range of UV excess is measured for the CTTS population,
varying from a few 0.1 to 3 mag. We convert these values to accretion
luminosities and obtain mass accretion rates ranging from 1e-10 to 1e-7 Mo/yr.
Taking into account a mass-dependent detection threshold for weakly accreting
objects, we find a >6sigma correlation between mass accretion rate and stellar
mass. A power-law fit, properly accounting for upper limits, yields M_acc
$\propto$ M^{1.4+/-0.3}. At any given stellar mass, we find a large spread of
accretion rates, extending over about 2 orders of magnitude. The monitoring of
the UV excess on a timescale of a couple of weeks indicates that its
variability typically amounts to 0.5 dex, much smaller than the observed
spread. We suggest that a non-negligible age spread across the cluster may
effectively contribute to the observed spread in accretion rates at a given
mass. In addition, different accretion mechanisms (like, e.g., short-lived
accretion bursts vs. more stable funnel-flow accretion) may be associated to
different M_acc regimes.
