First measurement of muon-neutrino disappearance in NOvA

• Published in: arXiv.org 2016-01
• Main Authors: Andrews, M, Anfimov, N, Anghel, I, Arms, K, Ayres, D, Baird, M, Bays, K, Bower, C, Broemmelsiek, D, Capista, D, Catano-Mur, E, Chase, T R, Choudhary, B C, Coan, T E, Coelho, J A B, M Colo, Cooper, J, Cronin-Hennessy, D, Demuth, D, Desai, S, Deuerling, G, Ding, P, Duyang, H, Ehrlich, R, Fenyves, E J, Freeman, W, Gilbert, W, Giri, A, Goodenough, L, Grichine, V, R Group, Grudzinski, J, Habig, A, Hatcher, R, Huang, X, Ishitsuka, M, Jensen, C, Jensen, D, Kafka, G K, Kasetti, S, Kourbanis, I, Kreymer, A, Kumar, A, Kutnink, T, Kwong, J, Lang, K, Lee, A, Lein, S, Liu, J, Lokajicek, M, Q Lu, Magill, S, Martens, M, Mathis, M, McCluskey, E, Mehdiyev, R, Miao, T, Michael, D, Moren, A, Mualem, L, Muether, M, Nelson, J K, Norman, A, Oksuzian, Y, Olshevskiy, A, Para, A, Pawloski, G, Peterson, E, Phan-Budd, S, Pla-Dalmau, A, Plunkett, R K, Rameika, R A, Rechenmacher, R, Reilly, R, Rodkin, D, Sachdev, K, Samoylov, O, Schlabach, P, Shanahan, P, Sheshukov, A, Singh, V, Smith, A, Smith, D, Stenkin, Y, Talaga, R L, Tas, P, Tian, X, Urheim, J, Vahle, P, Vrba, T, Waldron, A V, Wang, Z, Weber, A, Williams, K, Wood, K, Xin, T, Yadav, N, Yang, S, Zalesak, J, Zamorano, B
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Confidence intervals; Neutrinos
• ISSN: 2331-8422
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1601.05037

This paper reports the first measurement using the NOvA detectors of \(\nu_\mu\) disappearance in a \(\nu_\mu\) beam. The analysis uses a 14 kton-equivalent exposure of \(2.74 \times 10^{20}\) protons-on-target from the Fermilab NuMI beam. Assuming the normal neutrino mass hierarchy, we measure \(\Delta m^{2}_{32}=(2.52^{+0.20}_{-0.18})\times 10^{-3}\) eV\(^{2}\) and \(\sin^2\theta_{23}\) in the range 0.38-0.65, both at the 68% confidence level, with two statistically-degenerate best fit points at \(\sin^2\theta_{23} = \) 0.43 and 0.60. Results for the inverted mass hierarchy are also presented.