Abstract
Using 5326 days of atmospheric neutrino data, a search for atmospheric tau neutrino appearance has been performed in the Super-Kamiokande experiment. Super-Kamiokande measures the tau normalization to be 1.47±0.32 under the assumption of normal neutrino hierarchy, relative to the expectation of unity with neutrino oscillation. The result excludes the hypothesis of no-tau appearance with a significance level of 4.6σ. The inclusive charged-current tau neutrino cross section averaged by the tau neutrino flux at Super-Kamiokande is measured to be (0.94±0.20)×10−38 cm2. The measurement is consistent with the Standard Model prediction, agreeing to within 1.5σ.9 MoreReceived 27 November 2017DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.98.052006Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasNeutrino oscillationsPhysical SystemsNeutrinosParticles & Fields
Highlights
In the three-flavor neutrino framework, the three neutrino flavor states are superpositions of three neutrino mass states (ν1, ν2, ν3)
In order to predict the rate of both tau signal and atmospheric neutrino background, a full Monte Carlo (MC) simulation is used to model both the neutrino interactions and the detector response of Super-K
Tau leptons produced in the CC tau neutrino interactions are polarized, and the polarization affects the distributions of its decay particles
Summary
In the three-flavor neutrino framework, the three neutrino flavor states (νe, νμ, ντ) are superpositions of three neutrino mass states (ν1, ν2, ν3). The DONUT experiment first directly observed the tau neutrino by measuring charged-current interactions using a high-energy neutrino beam that contained tau neutrinos [14]. Super-Kamiokande previously published a measurement of atmospheric tau neutrino appearance consistent with three-flavor neutrino oscillation with data collected in SK-I through SK-III [17]. This analysis has been updated with data collected in SK-IV between 2008 and 2016, and the simulation and reconstruction have been improved.
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