We explore the capabilities of the upcoming Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) to measure $ u_tau$ charged-current interactions and the associated oscillation probability $P( u_mu to u_tau)$ at its far detector, concentrating on how such results can be used to probe neutrino properties and interactions. DUNE has the potential to identify significantly more $ u_tau$ events than all existing experiments and can use this data sample to nontrivially test the three-massive-neutrinos paradigm by providing complementary measurements to those from the $ u_e$ appearance and $ u_mu$ disappearance channels. We further discuss the sensitivity of the $ u_tau$ appearance channel to several hypotheses for the physics that may lurk beyond the three-massive-neutrinos paradigm: a non-unitary lepton mixing matrix, the $3+1$ light neutrinos hypothesis, and the existence of non-standard neutral-current neutrino interactions. Throughout, we also consider the relative benefits of the proposed high-energy tune of the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) beam-line.
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