OPERA tau neutrino charged current interactions.

ABSTRACT: The OPERA experiment was designed to discover the v_τ appearance in a v_μ beam, due to neutrino oscillations. The detector, located in the underground Gran Sasso Laboratory, consisted of a nuclear photographic emulsion/lead target with a mass of about 1.25 kt, complemented by electronic detectors. It was exposed from 2008 to 2012 to the CNGS beam: an almost pure v_μ beam with a baseline of 730 km, collecting a total of 1.8·10²⁰ protons on target. The OPERA Collaboration eventually assessed the discovery of v_μ→v_τ oscillations with a statistical significance of 6.1 σ by observing ten v_τ CC interaction candidates. These events have been published on the Open Data Portal at CERN. This paper provides a detailed description of the v_τ data sample to make it usable by the whole community.

SUBMITTER: Agafonova N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8361145 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature