No Arabic abstract
The OPERA experiment, exposed to the CERN to Gran Sasso $ u_mu$ beam, collected data from 2008 to 2012. Four oscillated $ u_tau$ Charged Current interaction candidates have been detected in appearance mode, which are consistent with $ u_mu to u_tau$ oscillations at the atmospheric $Delta m^2$ within the standard three-neutrino framework. In this paper, the OPERA $ u_tau$ appearance results are used to derive limits on the mixing parameters of a massive sterile neutrino.
The OPERA experiment was designed to search for $ u_{mu} rightarrow u_{tau}$ oscillations in appearance mode, i.e. by detecting the $tau$-leptons produced in charged current $ u_{tau}$ interactions. The experiment took data from 2008 to 2012 in the CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso beam. The observation of $ u_{mu} rightarrow u_{tau}$ appearance, achieved with four candidate events in a sub-sample of the data, was previously reported. In this paper, a fifth $ u_{tau}$ candidate event, found in an enlarged data sample, is described. Together with a further reduction of the expected background, the candidate events detected so far allow assessing the discovery of $ u_{mu}rightarrow u_{tau}$ oscillations in appearance mode with a significance larger than 5 $sigma$.
OPERA is a long-baseline experiment designed to search for $ u_{mu}to u_{tau}$ oscillations in appearance mode. It was based at the INFN Gran Sasso laboratory (LNGS) and took data from 2008 to 2012 with the CNGS neutrino beam from CERN. After the discovery of $ u_tau$ appearance in 2015, with $5.1sigma$ significance, the criteria to select $ u_tau$ candidates have been extended and a multivariate approach has been used for events identification. In this way the statistical uncertainty in the measurement of the oscillation parameters and of $ u_tau$ properties has been improved. Results are reported.
The OPERA experiment has conclusively observed the appearance of tau neutrinos in the muon neutrino CNGS beam. Exploiting the OPERA detector capabilities, it was possible to isolate high purity samples of $ u_{e}$, $ u_{mu}$ and $ u_{tau}$ charged current weak neutrino interactions, as well as neutral current weak interactions. In this Letter, the full dataset is used for the first time to test the three-flavor neutrino oscillation model and to derive constraints on the existence of a light sterile neutrino within the framework of the $3+1$ neutrino model. For the first time, tau and electron neutrino appearance channels are jointly used to test the sterile neutrino hypothesis. A significant fraction of the sterile neutrino parameter space allowed by LSND and MiniBooNE experiments is excluded at 90% C.L. In particular, the best-fit values obtained by MiniBooNE combining neutrino and antineutrino data are excluded at 3.3 $sigma$ significance.
The OPERA neutrino experiment at the underground Gran Sasso Laboratory has measured the velocity of neutrinos from the CERN CNGS beam over a baseline of about 730 km. The measurement is based on data taken by OPERA in the years 2009, 2010 and 2011. Dedicated upgrades of the CNGS timing system and of the OPERA detector, as well as a high precision geodesy campaign for the measurement of the neutrino baseline, allowed reaching comparable systematic and statistical accuracies. An arrival time of CNGS muon neutrinos with respect to the one computed assuming the speed of light in vacuum of (6.5 +/- 7.4(stat.)((+8.3)(-8.0)sys.))ns was measured corresponding to a relative difference of the muon neutrino velocity with respect to the speed of light (v-c)/c =(2.7 +/-3.1(stat.)((+3.4)(-3.3)(sys.))x10^(-6). The above result, obtained by comparing the time distributions of neutrino interactions and of protons hitting the CNGS target in 10.5 microseconds long extractions, was confirmed by a test performed at the end of 2011 using a short bunch beam allowing to measure the neutrino time of flight at the single interaction level.
The OPERA experiment is designed to search for $ u_{mu} rightarrow u_{tau}$ oscillations in appearance mode i.e. through the direct observation of the $tau$ lepton in $ u_{tau}$ charged current interactions. The experiment has taken data for five years, since 2008, with the CERN Neutrino to Gran Sasso beam. Previously, two $ u_{tau}$ candidates with a $tau$ decaying into hadrons were observed in a sub-sample of data of the 2008-2011 runs. Here we report the observation of a third $ u_tau$ candidate in the $tau^-tomu^-$ decay channel coming from the analysis of a sub-sample of the 2012 run. Taking into account the estimated background, the absence of $ u_{mu} rightarrow u_{tau}$ oscillations is excluded at the 3.4 $sigma$ level.