Latest Three-Flavor Neutrino Oscillation Results from NOvA
摘要
NOvA is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment based at Fermilab, IL, USA that studies \(\nu _{\mu } (\overline{\nu }_\mu )\rightarrow \nu _{\mu } (\overline{\nu }_\mu )\) disappearance and \(\nu _{\mu } (\overline{\nu }_\mu )\rightarrow \nu _{e} (\overline{\nu }_e)\) appearance oscillations using a pair of functionally identical liquid scintillation detectors, placed 809 km apart and 14.6 mrad off-axis to the NuMI beam direction. It uses high purity beam of neutrinos and anti-neutrinos from Fermilab’s Neutrinos at Main Injector (NuMI) beamline. The near detector, situated 1 km from the beam source, detects un-oscillated \(\nu _\mu (\bar{\nu }_\mu )\) and beam \(\nu _e (\bar{\nu }_e)\) events, while the far detector located 810 km from the beam source in Ash River, MN, USA records the un-oscillated \(\nu _\mu (\bar{\nu }_\mu )\) and the oscillated \(\nu _{\mu } (\overline{\nu }_\mu )\rightarrow \nu _e (\bar{\nu }_e)\) events. The most recent results of three flavor neutrino oscillation parameters based on analysis of the data collected from neutrino-beam exposure of \(26.60 \times 10^{20}\) POT and anti-neutrino beam exposure of \(12.50\times 10^{20}\) POT, including an additional low energy \(\nu _e\) sample is presented here. The best-fit value of the atmospheric mass squared splitting \(\Delta m^2_{32}\) and the mixing angle \(\theta _{23}\) was found to be \(\Delta m^2_{32}=2.433_{-0.036}^{+0.035} \times 10^{-3} \textrm{eV}^2\) and \(\sin ^2\theta _{23}=0.546_{-0.075}^{+0.032}\) , respectively. The mass squared splitting \(\Delta m^2_{32}\) was measured with a record precision of 1.4%. The CP violating phase \(\delta _{\mathrm CP}=\pi /2\) is excluded with a significance of \(>3\sigma \) in inverted mass ordering. The region around \(\delta _{\mathrm CP}=3\pi /2\) is also disfavored in the normal mass ordering at \(1\sigma \) significance.