Published January 1, 2014 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Evidence for nu(mu) -> nu(tau) appearance in the CNGS neutrino beam with the OPERA experiment

  • 1. Russian Acad Sci, INR Inst Nucl Res, RUS-117312 Moscow, Russia
  • 2. INFN Sezione Napoli, I-80125 Naples, Italy
  • 3. Lomonosov Moscow 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-648602 Nagoya, Aichi, Japan
  • 7. Univ Lyon 1, IPNL, F-69622 Villeurbanne, France
  • 8. ETH, Inst Particle Phys, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland
  • 9. METU Middle East Tech Univ, TR-06531 Ankara, Turkey
  • 10. INFN Sezione Padova, I-35131 Padua, Italy
  • 11. INFN, Dipartimento Fis Uni Salerno & Gruppo Colle, I-84084 Fisciano, Italy
  • 12. Univ Savoie, LAPP, CNRS IN2P3, F-74941 Annecy Le Vieux, France
  • 13. Univ Hamburg, D-22761 Hamburg, Germany

Description

The OPERA experiment is designed to search for nu(mu) -> nu(tau) oscillations in appearance mode, i.e., through the direct observation of the tau lepton in nu(tau)- charged current interactions. The experiment has taken data for five years, since 2008, with the CERN Neutrino to Gran Sasso beam. Previously, two nu(tau) candidates with a t decaying into hadrons were observed in a subsample of data of the 2008-2011 runs. Here we report the observation of a third nu(tau) candidate in the tau(-) -> mu(-) decay channel coming from the analysis of a subsample of the 2012 run. Taking into account the estimated background, the absence of nu(mu) -> nu(tau) oscillations is excluded at the 3.4 sigma level.

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