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Final Results of the OPERA Experiment on ντ Appearance in the CNGS Neutrino Beam

N. Agafonova et al. (OPERA Collaboration)
Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 211801 – Published 22 May 2018; Erratum Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 139901 (2018)
Physics logo See Synopsis: OPERA’s Final Stamp on Neutrino Oscillations

Abstract

The OPERA experiment was designed to study νμντ oscillations in the appearance mode in the CERN to Gran Sasso Neutrino beam (CNGS). In this Letter, we report the final analysis of the full data sample collected between 2008 and 2012, corresponding to 17.97×1019 protons on target. Selection criteria looser than in previous analyses have produced ten ντ candidate events, thus reducing the statistical uncertainty in the measurement of the oscillation parameters and of ντ properties. A multivariate approach for event identification has been applied to the candidate events and the discovery of ντ appearance is confirmed with an improved significance level of 6.1σ. |Δm322| has been measured, in appearance mode, with an accuracy of 20%. The measurement of the ντ charged-current cross section, for the first time with a negligible contamination from ν¯τ, and the first direct evidence for the ντ lepton number are also reported.

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  • Received 16 April 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.211801

Published 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 Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Particles & Fields

Erratum

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OPERA’s Final Stamp on Neutrino Oscillations

Published 22 May 2018

The final analysis of data collected by the OPERA experiment improves the precision of measurements of neutrinos oscillating between muon and tau flavors.

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Vol. 120, Iss. 21 — 25 May 2018

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