Published January 1, 2014 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Observation of tau neutrino appearance in the CNGS beam with the OPERA experiment

Creators

  • 1. Russian Acad Sci, INR, RUS-117312 Moscow, Russia
  • 2. Ist Nazl Fis Nucl, Sez Napoli, I-80125 Naples, Italy
  • 3. Moscow MV Lomonosov State Univ, SINP MSU Skobeltsyn Inst Nucl Phys, RUS-119992 Moscow, Russia
  • 4. Kobe Univ, J-6578501 Kobe, Hyogo, Japan
  • 5. Univ Bern, Albert Einstein Ctr Fundamental Phys, LHEP, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
  • 6. Nagoya Univ, J-4648602 Nagoya, Aichi, Japan
  • 7. Middle E Tech Univ, TR-06531 Ankara, Turkey
  • 8. Ist Nazl Fis Nucl, Sez Padova, I-35131 Padua, Italy
  • 9. Univ Hamburg, D-22761 Hamburg, Germany
  • 10. Russian Acad Sci, LPI, Moscow 119991, Russia
  • 11. JINR, RUS-141980 Dubna, Russia
  • 12. Ist Nazl Fis Nucl, Lab Nazl Gran Sasso, I-67010 Laquila, Italy

Description

The OPERA experiment is searching for nu(mu) -> nu(tau) oscillations in appearance mode, i.e., via the direct detection of tau leptons in nu(tau) charged-current interactions. The evidence of nu(mu) -> nu(tau) appearance has been previously reported with three nu(tau) candidate events using a sub-sample of data from the 2008-2012 runs. We report here a fourth nu(tau) candidate event, with the tau decaying into a hadron, found after adding the 2012 run events without any muon in the final state to the data sample. Given the number of analyzed events and the low background, nu(mu) -> nu(tau) oscillations are established with a significance of 4.2 sigma.

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