Measurements of neutrino oscillation parameters from the T2K experiment using 3.6times 10^{21} protons on target

Abstract

The T2K experiment presents new measurements of neutrino oscillation parameters using 19.7(16.3)times 10^{20} protons on target (POT) in (anti-)neutrino mode at the far detector (FD). Compared to the previous analysis, an additional 4.7times 10^{20} POT neutrino data was collected at the FD. Significant improvements were made to the analysis methodology, with the near-detector analysis introducing new selections and using more than double the data. Additionally, this is the first T2K oscillation analysis to use NA61/SHINE data on a replica of the T2K target to tune the neutrino flux model, and the neutrino interaction model was improved to include new nuclear effects and calculations. Frequentist and Bayesian analyses are presented, including results on sin ^2theta _{13} and the impact of priors on the delta _{textrm{CP}} measurement. Both analyses prefer the normal mass ordering and upper octant of sin ^2theta _{23} with a nearly maximally CP-violating phase. Assuming the normal ordering and using the constraint on sin ^2theta _{13} from reactors, sin ^2theta _{23}=0.561^{+0.021}_{-0.032} using Feldman–Cousins corrected intervals, and varDelta {}m^2_{32}=2.494_{-0.058}^{+0.041}times 10^{-3}~text {eV}^2 using constant varDelta chi ^{2} intervals. The CP-violating phase is constrained to delta _{textrm{CP}}=-1.97_{-0.70}^{+0.97} using Feldman–Cousins corrected intervals, and delta _{textrm{CP}}=0,pi is excluded at more than 90% confidence level. A Jarlskog invariant of zero is excluded at more than 2sigma credible level using a flat prior in delta _{textrm{CP}}, and just below 2sigma using a flat prior in sin delta _{textrm{CP}}. When the external constraint on sin ^2theta _{13} is removed, sin ^2theta _{13}=28.0^{+2.8}_{-6.5}times 10^{-3}, in agreement with measurements from reactor experiments. These results are consistent with previous T2K analyses.