Final tau-neutrino results from the DONuT experiment

Kodama, K.; Ushida, N.; Andreopoulos, C.; Saoulidou, N.; Tzanakos, G.; Yager, P. M.; Baller, B.; Boehnlein, D.; Freeman, W.; Lundberg, B.; Morfín, J.; Rameika, R.; Chung, S. H.; Song, Jeonghyeon; Yoon, C. S.; Berghaus, P.; Kubantsev, M.; Reay, N. W.; Sidwell, R. A.; Stanton, N. R.; Yoshida, S.; Aoki, Shigeki; Hara, T.; Rhee, Jiyoung; Ciampa, D.; Erickson, C.; Graham, M. T.; Maher, E.; Heller, K.; Rusack, R.; Schwienhorst, R.; Sielaff, J.; Trammell, J.; Wilcox, J.; Furukawa, Taiki; Hoshino, K.; Jiko, H.; Komatsu, M.; Nakamura, Makoto; Nakano, T.; Niwa, K.; Nonaka, N.; Okada, K.; Park, B. D.; Sato, Osamu; Takahashi, Shinichiro; Paolone, V.; Rosenfeld, C.; Kulik, A.V.; Kafka, T.; Oliver, W. P.; Patzak, T.; Schneps, J.

doi:10.1103/physrevd.78.052002

Cited by 138 publications

(149 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…In 2000 DONUT reported the first evidence for ν τ events [27]. In their final dataset they observe 9 candidate tau events over an expected background of 1.5 events [28], obtaining conclusive evidence for ν τ interactions and completing the fermion content of the Standard Model.…”

Section: The Number Of Neutrino Generationsmentioning

confidence: 92%

Measuring neutrino oscillation parameters using $\nu_\mu$ disappearance in MINOS

Backhouse¹

2011

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MINOS is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment. It consists of two large steel-scintillator tracking calorimeters. The near detector is situated at Fermilab, close to the production point of the NuMI muon-neutrino beam. The far detector is 735 km away, 716 m underground in the Soudan mine, Northern Minnesota.The primary purpose of the MINOS experiment is to make precise measurements of the "atmospheric" neutrino oscillation parameters (∆m 2 atm and sin 2 2θ atm ). The oscillation signal consists of an energy-dependent deficit of ν µ interactions in the far detector. The near detector is used to characterize the properties of the beam before oscillations develop. The two-detector design allows many potential sources of systematic error in the far detector to be mitigated by the near detector observations. This thesis describes the details of the ν µ -disappearance analysis, and presents a new technique to estimate the hadronic energy of neutrino interactions. This estimator achieves a significant improvement in the energy resolution of the neutrino spectrum, and in the sensitivity of the neutrino oscillation fit. The systematic uncertainty on the hadronic energy scale was re-evaluated and found to be comparable to that of the energy estimator previously in use.The best-fit oscillation parameters of the ν µ -disappearance analysis, incorporating this new estimator were: ∆m 2 = 2.32. A similar analysis, using data from a period of running where the NuMI beam was operated in a configuration producing a predominantlyν µ beam, yielded somewhat different best-fit parameters ∆m 2 = 3.36−0.12 (stat.) ± 0.01(syst.). The tension between these results is intriguing, and additional antineutrino data is currently being taken in order to further investigate this apparent discrepancy. DeclarationI declare that this thesis and the work presented in it are my own and were produced by me as the result of my own original research. The work was done while a candidate for a degree at the University of Oxford, and has not been submitted for any other qualification. Results and figures from published works have been clearly attributed.The energy estimation technique presented in Chapter 5 of this thesis was my primary original contribution to the MINOS charged-current analysis. The analysis as a whole was performed by a group within the collaboration, and while I made significant contributions, the innovations described in Chapter 4 are the work of others (in many cases the subject of a thesis in their own right).ii AcknowledgmentsOver the course of 3 1 /2 years I've collected quite a number of people without whom this thesis wouldn't have been possible (or at least severely delayed). So here goes, in roughly chronological order:Thanks to my supervisor, Giles Barr, who never ceases to be optimistic, no matter how broken the analysis, or close the deadline. I also appreciated his offers (which I never had to take up) to throw his weight around and leave me to get on with writing, and his prompt proofreading (by usual a...

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Section: The Number Of Neutrino Generationsmentioning

confidence: 92%

Measuring neutrino oscillation parameters using $\nu_\mu$ disappearance in MINOS

Backhouse¹

2011

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“…A source of high-energy tau neutrinos opens the possibility of new tests of the Standard Model that can not be done at DUNE. Measurements of LHC forward tau neutrino interactions can be used for direct tests of lepton flavor universality in charged current interactions with much higher statistics than achieved by Donut [19,20] and Opera [21,22]. Measurements of the interaction cross-sections of muon neutrinos from heavy-flavor decays at the LHC with the nucleons/nuclei of the target will help to close the gap between direct neutrino cross-section measurements for E ν < 370 GeV [1] and the IceCube Collaboration's determination of the averaged cross-section for neutrino plus antineutrino deep-inelastic scattering with nucleons for E ν = 6.3−980 TeV [23].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Far-forward neutrinos at the Large Hadron Collider

Bai

Diwan

Garzelli

et al. 2020

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We present a new calculation of the energy distribution of high-energy neutrinos from the decay of charm and bottom hadrons produced at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In the kinematical region of very forward rapidities, heavy-flavor production and decay is a source of tau neutrinos that leads to thousands of charged-current tau neutrino events in a 1 m long, 1 m radius lead neutrino detector at a distance of 480 m from the interaction region. In our computation, next-to-leading order QCD radiative corrections are accounted for in the production cross-sections. Non-perturbative intrinsic-k T effects are approximated by a simple phenomenological model introducing a Gaussian k T -smearing of the parton distribution functions, which might also mimic perturbative effects due to multiple initial-state soft-gluon emissions. The transition from partonic to hadronic states is described by phenomenological fragmentation functions. To study the effect of various input parameters, theoretical predictions for D ± s production are compared with LHCb data on double-differential cross-sections in transverse momentum and rapidity. The uncertainties related to the choice of the input parameter values, ultimately affecting the predictions of the tau neutrino event distributions, are discussed. We consider a 3+1 neutrino mixing scenario to illustrate the potential for a neutrino experiment to constrain the 3+1 parameter space using tau neutrinos and antineutrinos. We find large theoretical uncertainties in the predictions of the neutrino fluxes in the far-forward region. Untangling the effects of tau neutrino oscillations into sterile neutrinos and distinguishing a 3+1 scenario from the standard scenario with three active neutrino flavours, will be challenging due to the large theoretical uncertainties from QCD.

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“…This difficulty made emulsion the only practical choice for the detector technology used. In their final results, the DONUT collaboration reported 9 ν τ CC candidates above a background of 1.5 events [31].…”

Section: The Theory Of the Weak Interactionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Sterile-Neutrino Search with the MINOS Experiment

Rodrigues

2010

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The MINOS experiment is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment in the NuMI beamline at Fermilab, USA. Using a near detector at 1 km distance from the neutrino production target, and a far detector at 735 km from the target, it is designed primarily to measure the disappearance of muon neutrinos.This thesis presents an analysis using MINOS data of the possibility of oscillation of the neutrinos in the NuMI beam to a hypothetical sterile flavour, which would have no Standard Model couplings. Such oscillations would result in a deficit in the neutral current interaction rate in the MINOS far detector relative to the expectation derived from the near detector data.The method used to identify neutral current and charged current events in the MINOS detectors is described and a new method of predicting and fitting the far detector spectrum presented, along with the effects of systematic uncertainties on the sterile neutrino oscillation analysis.Using this analysis, the fraction f s of the disappearing neutrinos that go to steriles is constrained to be below 0.15 at the 90% confidence level in the absence of electron neutrino appearance in the NuMI beam. With electron appearance at the CHOOZ limit, f s < 0.41 at 90% C.L.

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Final tau-neutrino results from the DONuT experiment

Cited by 138 publications

References 21 publications

Measuring neutrino oscillation parameters using $\nu_\mu$ disappearance in MINOS

Measuring neutrino oscillation parameters using $\nu_\mu$ disappearance in MINOS

Far-forward neutrinos at the Large Hadron Collider

A Sterile-Neutrino Search with the MINOS Experiment

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