Results from the OPERA experiment

A. Di Crescenzo

doi:10.1051/epjconf/201716401025

EPJ

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Proceedings

Open Access

EPJ Web of Conferences 164, 01025 (2017)
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201716401025

Results from the OPERA experiment

A. Di Crescenzo¹^,2^a on behalf of the OPERA Collaboration

¹ Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università Federico II di Napoli
² INFN Sezione di Napoli

^a e-mail dicrescenzo@na.infn.it

Published online: 5 December 2017

Abstract

The OPERA neutrino experiment was designed to perform a unique v_τ appearance measurement in the v_μ CNGS beam to confirm the oscillation mechanism in the atmospheric sector v_μ → v_τ. The detection of v_τ leptons produced in v_τ CC interactions and of their decays is accomplished exploiting the high spatial resolution of nuclear emulsions. Five v_τ candidate events have been detected in the full data sample from 2008-2012 CNGS runs, with an expected background of 0.25 events. The background only hypothesis is rejected with a significance larger than 5 σ. The analysis of the tau neutrino sample in the framework of the 3+1 neutrino model is also presented. Furthermore OPERA good capabilities in detecting electron neutrino interactions allow setting limits on the v_μ → v_e oscillation channel.

© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2017

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).