The T2K experiment reports updated measurements of neutrino and antineutrino oscillations using both appearance and disappearance channels. This result comes from an exposure of 14.9 (16.4) × 1020 ...protons on target in neutrino (antineutrino) mode. Significant improvements have been made to the neutrino interaction model and far detector reconstruction. An extensive set of simulated data studies have also been performed to quantify the effect interaction model uncertainties have on the T2K oscillation parameter sensitivity. T2K performs multiple oscillation analyses that present both frequentist and Bayesian intervals for the Pontecorvo-Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata parameters. For fits including a constraint on sin 2θ13 from reactor data and assuming normal mass ordering T2K measures sin 2θ23 = 0.53 +0.03 −0.04 and Δm232 = (2.45 ± 0.07) × 10−3 eV2 c−4. The Bayesian analyses show a weak preference for normal mass ordering (89% posterior probability) and the upper sin 2θ23 octant (80% posterior probability), with a uniform prior probability assumed in both cases. The T2K data exclude CP conservation in neutrino oscillations at the 2σ level.
Results are presented of a two-pion interferometry (HBT) analysis in Pb+Au collisions at 40, 80, and 158
A
GeV. A detailed study of the Bertsch–Pratt HBT radius parameters has been performed as ...function of the mean pair transverse momentum
k
t
and in bins of the centrality of the collision. From these results we extract model-dependent information about the space–time evolution of the reaction. An investigation of the effective volume of the pion emitting system provides an important tool to study the properties of thermal pion freeze-out.
This paper reports on the search for heavy neutrinos with masses in the range 140<MN<493 MeV/c2 using the off-axis near detector ND280 of the T2K experiment. These particles can be produced from kaon ...decays in the standard neutrino beam and then subsequently decay in ND280. The decay modes under consideration are N→ℓα±π∓ and N→ℓα+ℓβ−ν(−)(α,β=e,μ). A search for such events has been made using the Time Projection Chambers of ND280, where the background has been reduced to less than two events in the current dataset in all channels. No excess has been observed in the signal region. A combined Bayesian statistical approach has been applied to extract upper limits on the mixing elements of heavy neutrinos to electron-, muon- and tau- flavored currents (Ue2, Uμ2, Uτ2) as a function of the heavy neutrino mass, e.g., Ue2<10−9 at 90% C.L. for a mass of 390 MeV/c2. These constraints are competitive with previous experiments.
Based on an evaluation of data on pion interferometry and on particle yields at midrapidity, we propose a universal condition for thermal freeze-out of pions in heavy-ion collisions. We show that ...freeze-out occurs when the mean free path of pions lambda(f) reaches a value of about 1 fm, which is much smaller than the spatial extent of the system at freeze-out. This critical mean free path is independent of the centrality of the collision and beam energy from the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron to the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.
This paper reports measurements of final-state proton multiplicity, muon and proton kinematics, and their correlations in charged-current pionless neutrino interactions, measured by the T2K ND280 ...near detector in its plastic scintillator (C8H8) target. The data were taken between years 2010 and 2013, corresponding to approximately 6×1020 protons on target. Thanks to their exploration of the proton kinematics and of imbalances between the proton and muon kinematics, the results offer a novel probe of the nuclear-medium effects most pertinent to the (sub-)GeV neutrino-nucleus interactions that are used in accelerator-based long-baseline neutrino oscillation measurements. These results are compared to many neutrino-nucleus interaction models which all fail to describe at least part of the observed phase space. In case of events without a proton above a detection threshold in the final state, a fully consistent implementation of the local Fermi gas model with multinucleon interactions gives the best description of the data. In the case of at least one proton in the final state, the spectral function model agrees well with the data, most notably when measuring the kinematic imbalance between the muon and the proton in the plane transverse to the incoming neutrino. Within the models considered, only the existence of multinucleon interactions are able to describe the extracted cross section within regions of high transverse kinematic imbalance. The effect of final-state interactions is also discussed.
The T2K experiment observes indications of ν(μ) → ν(e) appearance in data accumulated with 1.43×10(20) protons on target. Six events pass all selection criteria at the far detector. In a three-flavor ...neutrino oscillation scenario with |Δm(23)(2)| = 2.4×10(-3) eV(2), sin(2)2θ(23) = 1 and sin(2)2θ(13) = 0, the expected number of such events is 1.5±0.3(syst). Under this hypothesis, the probability to observe six or more candidate events is 7×10(-3), equivalent to 2.5σ significance. At 90% C.L., the data are consistent with 0.03(0.04) < sin(2)2θ(13) < 0.28(0.34) for δ(CP) = 0 and a normal (inverted) hierarchy.
We carried out a careful evaluation of the performance of the large cathode area ETL 9357FLA photomultiplier tube operating at cryogenic temperature. The measurements were focused on evaluating the ...parameters which mainly characterize the operating performances of the device down to 77
K and the spread of the distinctive features over 54 samples assembled in the ICARUS apparatus. The results that we obtained demonstrate that the photomultiplier is suited for light detection in such unconventional operating conditions, certifying this device for the direct measurement of scintillation light coming from noble-gas liquids in detectors dedicated to neutrino physics and dark matter research.
The ICARUS collaboration has demonstrated, following the operation of a 600 ton (T600) detector at shallow depth, that the technique based on liquid argon time projection chambers is now mature. The ...study of rare events, not contemplated in the standard model, can greatly benefit from the use of this kind of detectors. In particular, a deeper understanding of atmospheric neutrino properties will be obtained thanks to the unprecedented quality of the data ICARUS provides. However if we concentrate on the T600 performance, most of the νμ charged current sample will be partially contained, due to the reduced dimensions of the detector. In this article, we address the problem of how well we can determine the kinematics of events having partially contained tracks. The analysis of a large sample of atmospheric muons collected during the T600 test run demonstrates that, in case the recorded track is at least one meter long, the muon momentum can be reconstructed by an algorithm that measures the multiple Coulomb scattering along the particle’s path. Moreover, we show that momentum resolution can be improved by almost a factor two using an algorithm based on the Kalman filtering technique.
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