First measurement of neutrino oscillation parameters using neutrinos and antineutrinos by NOvA

• Published in: arXiv.org 2019-06
• Main Authors: Alion, T, Altakarli, S, Anfimov, N, Antoshkin, A, Aurisano, A, Balashov, N, Baldi, P, Bashar, S, Bays, K, Bending, S, Bhuyan, B, Bian, J, Blackburn, T, Blair, J, Booth, A C, Buchanan, N, Catano-Mur, E, Childress, S, Choudhary, B C, Coan, T E, M Colo, Cooper, J, Davies, G S, Derwent, P F, Dukes, E C, Duyang, H, Feldman, G J, Frank, M J, Goodman, M C, Guo, B, Heller, K, Hewes, V, Holin, A, Howard, B, Jediny, F, Kakorin, I, Kalra, D, Kaplan, D M, Klimov, O, Koerner, L W, Kulenberg, Ch, Kumar, A, Kuruppu, C D, Kus, V, Lackey, T, Lin, S, Lokajicek, M, Lozier, J, Luchuk, S, Magill, S, Mann, W A, Marshak, M L, Matveev, V, Messier, M D, Miao, T, Miller, W H, Mishra, S R, Moren, A, Muether, M, Murphy, R, Musser, J, Naples, D, Nikseresht, G, Norman, A, Nosek, T, Patterson, R B, Pawloski, G, Petti, R, Phan, D D, Psihas, F, Radovic, A, Raj, V, Rameika, R A, Rojas, P, Shanahan, P, Sheshukov, A, Singh, P, Smith, E, Smolik, J, Snopok, P, Solomey, N, Sousa, A, Soustruznik, K, Talaga, R L, Thayyullathil, R B, Tripathi, J, Torun, Y, Vahle, P, Vinton, L, Vokac, P, Wallbank, M, Wang, B, While, M, Wojcicki, S G, Wolcott, J, Yonehara, K, S Yu, Zadorozhnyy, S, Zwaska, R, NOvA Collaboration
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antineutrinos; Neutrinos; Parameters
• ISSN: 2331-8422
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1906.04907

The NOvA experiment has made a \(4.4\sigma\)-significant observation of \(\bar\nu_{e}\) appearance in a 2 GeV \(\bar\nu_{\mu}\) beam at a distance of 810 km. Using \(12.33\times10^{20}\) protons on target delivered to the Fermilab NuMI neutrino beamline, the experiment recorded 27 \(\bar\nu_{\mu} \rightarrow \bar\nu_{e}\) candidates with a background of 10.3 and 102 \(\bar\nu_{\mu} \rightarrow \bar\nu_{\mu}\) candidates. This new antineutrino data is combined with neutrino data to measure the oscillation parameters \(|\Delta m^2_{32}| = 2.48^{+0.11}_{-0.06}\times10^{-3}\) eV\(^2/c^4\), \(\sin^2 \theta_{23} = 0.56^{+0.04}_{-0.03}\) in the normal neutrino mass hierarchy and upper octant and excludes most values near \(\delta_{\rm CP}=\pi/2\) for the inverted mass hierarchy by more than 3\(\sigma\). The data favor the normal neutrino mass hierarchy by 1.9\(\sigma\) and \(\theta_{23}\) values in the upper octant by 1.6\(\sigma\).