The T2K experiment has observed electron neutrino appearance in a muon neutrino beam produced 295 km from the Super-Kamiokande detector with a peak energy of 0.6 GeV. A total of 28 electron neutrino events were detected with an energy distribution consistent with an appearance signal, corresponding to a significance of 7.3$sigma$ when compared to 4.92 $pm$ 0.55 expected background events. In the PMNS mixing model, the electron neutrino appearance signal depends on several parameters including three mixing angles $theta_{12}$, $theta_{23}$, $theta_{13}$, a mass difference $Delta m^2_{32}$ and a CP violating phase $delta_{mathrm{CP}}$. In this neutrino oscillation scenario, assuming $|Delta m^2_{32}| = 2.4 times 10^{-3}$ $rm eV^2$, $sin^2 theta_{23} = 0.5$, and $Delta m^2_{32} >0$ ($Delta m^2_{32} <0$), a best-fit value of $sin^2 2 theta_{13}$ = $0.140^{+0.038}_{-0.032}$ ($0.170^{+0.045}_{-0.037}$) is obtained at $delta_{mathrm{CP}}=0$. When combining the result with the current best knowledge of oscillation parameters including the world average value of $theta_{13}$ from reactor experiments, some values of $delta_{mathrm{CP}}$ are disfavored at the 90% CL.
Download