Discovery of τ Neutrino Appearance in the CNGS Neutrino Beam with the OPERA Experiment

The OPERA experiment was designed to search for νµ → ντ oscillations in appearance mode, i.e. by detecting the τ leptons produced in charged current ντ interactions. The experiment took data from 2008 to 2012 in the CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso beam. The observation of the νµ → ντ appearance, achieved with four candidate events in a subsample of the data, was previously reported. In this Letter, a fifth ντ candidate event, found in an enlarged data sample, is described. Together with a further reduction of the expected background, the candidate events detected so far allow us to assess the discovery of νµ → ντ oscillations in appearance mode with a significance larger than 5 σ.

Limits on muon-neutrino to tau-neutrino oscillations induced by a sterile neutrino state obtained by OPERA at the CNGS beam

The OPERA experiment, exposed to the CERN to Gran Sasso νµ beam, collected data from 2008 to 2012. Four oscillated ντ Charged Current interaction candidates have been detected in appearance mode, which are consistent with νµ → ντ oscillations at the atmospheric ∆m^2 within the “standard” three-neutrino framework. In this paper, the OPERA ντ appearance results are used to derive limits on the mixing parameters of a massive sterile neutrino.

The OPERA experiment

The OPERA experiment was designed to study νμ→ντ oscillations in appearance mode using the CERN to Gran Sasso high energy neutrino beam. From 2008 to 2012, 19505 CNGS neutrino interactions were recorded in the OPERA detector. At the present status of the analysis, 4 ντ candidate events have been observed, establishing the oscillation mechanism in the atmospheric sector with a significance of 4.2 σ. The oscillation analysis will be presented in detail and the candidate events will be described. The final measurement of the atmospheric muon charge ratio in the TeV region will be also reported.