Measurement of Neutrino and Antineutrino Oscillations Using Beam and Atmospheric Data in MINOS

TL;DR

Measurements of oscillation parameters from ν (μ) and ν(μ) disappearance using beam and atmospheric data from MINOS are reported, with minimal change to the neutrino parameters.

Abstract

We report measurements of oscillation parameters from $ν_{mu}$ and $\barν_μ$ disappearance using beam and atmospheric data from MINOS. The data comprise exposures of \unit[$10.71 \times 10^{20}$]{protons on target (POT)} in the $ν_μ$-dominated beam, $\unit[3.36\times10^{20}]{POT}}$ in the $\barν_μ$-enhanced beam, and 37.88 kton-years of atmospheric neutrinos. Assuming identical $ν$ and $\barν$ oscillation parameters, we measure \mbox{$|Δm^2}| = \unit[2.41^{+0.09}_{-0.10}) \times 10^{-3}]{eV^{2}}$} and $\sin^{2}/!/left(2θ\right) = 0.950^{+0.035}_{-0.036}$. Allowing independent $ν$ and $\barν$ oscillations, we measure antineutrino parameters of $|Δ\bar{m}^2| = \unit[(2.50 ^{+0.23}_{-0.25}) \times 10^{-3}]{eV^{2}}$ and $\sin^{2}/!/left(2\barθ \right) = 0.97^{+0.03}_{-0.08}$, with minimal change to the neutrino parameters.

Figures (3)

• Figure 1: FD data samples compared to predictions with and without oscillations.  The top row shows the energy spectra of the beam samples, while the bottom row shows the L/E distributions for the atmospheric event samples.
• Figure 2: The allowed regions of $|\Delta m^2\xspace|$ and $\sin^{2}\!\left(2\theta \right)$, assuming identical neutrino and antineutrino oscillations. The MINOS result is compared to results from Super-Kamiokande ref:SKNeutrino2012 and T2K ref:T2Knucontour.
• Figure 3: The 90% confidence level allowed region of $|\Delta m^2\xspace|$ and $\sin^{2}\!\left(2\theta \right)$ from the fit assuming identical neutrino and antineutrino oscillations (MINOS 90%, also in Fig. \ref{['fig:nu']}) is compared to the allowed regions for $\nu_{\mu}\xspace$ and $\overline{\nu}_{\mu}\xspace$ from the fit in which neutrinos and antineutrinos have different oscillation parameters.