Abstract
The NOvA experiment has seen a 4.4σ signal of ν̄e appearance in a 2 GeV ν̄μ beam at a distance of 810 km. Using 12.33×1020 protons on target delivered to the Fermilab NuMI neutrino beamline, the experiment recorded 27 ν̄μ→ν̄e candidates with a background of 10.3 and 102 ν̄μ→ν̄μ candidates. This new antineutrino data are combined with neutrino data to measure the parameters |Δm322|=2.48-0.06+0.11×10-3 eV2/c4 and sin2θ23 in the ranges from (0.53-0.60) and (0.45-0.48) in the normal neutrino mass hierarchy. The data exclude most values near δCP=π/2 for the inverted mass hierarchy by more than 3σ and favor the normal neutrino mass hierarchy by 1.9σ and θ23 values in the upper octant by 1.6σ.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 151803 |
Journal | Physical review letters |
Volume | 123 |
Issue number | 15 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Oct 11 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We are grateful to Stephen Parke (FNAL) for useful discussions. This document was prepared by the NOvA collaboration using the resources of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), a U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, HEP User Facility. Fermilab is managed by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC (FRA), acting under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy; the U.S. National Science Foundation; the Department of Science and Technology, India; the European Research Council; the MSMT CR, GA UK, Czech Republic; the RAS, RFBR, RMES, RSF, and BASIS Foundation, Russia; CNPq and FAPEG, Brazil; STFC, and the Royal Society, United Kingdom; and the state and University of Minnesota. This work used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. We are grateful for the contributions of the staffs of the University of Minnesota at the Ash River Laboratory and of Fermilab.