Measurement of Muon Antineutrino Oscillations with an Accelerator-Produced Off-Axis Beam

5月 9, 2016

T2K reports its first measurements of the parameters governing the disappearance of ν̅μ in an off-axis beam due to flavor change induced by neutrino oscillations. The quasimonochromatic ν̅μ beam, produced with a peak energy of 0.6 GeV at J-PARC, is observed at the far detector Super-Kamiokande, 295 km away, where the ν̅μ survival probability is expected to be minimal. Using a data set corresponding to 4.01×1020 protons on target, 34 fully contained μ-like events were observed. The best-fit oscillation parameters are sin2(θ̅23)=0.45 and |Δm̅232|=2.51×10−3  eV2 with 68% confidence intervals of 0.38–0.64 and 2.26–2.80×10−3  eV2, respectively. These results are in agreement with existing antineutrino parameter measurements and also with the νμ disappearance parameters measured by T2K.