Discovery of Tau Neutrino Appearance and Recent Results from OPERA

Abstract

The OPERA experiment was designed to observe ${\nu }_{\mu }$ $\to$ ${\nu }_{\tau }$ oscillations through ${\nu }_{\tau }$ appearance at a baseline of 730 km in the CNGS beam. Newly developed emulsion analysis technology allows to measure ${\nu }_e$, ${\nu }_{\mu }$ and ${\nu }_{\tau }$ interactions with the largest emulsion detector ever made. OPERA has detected five ${\nu }_{\tau }$ candidates, allowing to reject the background-only hypothesis at 5.1 $\sigma$. The parameters for standard and non-standard oscillations are measured and constrained.

arXiv comment8 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, Proceedings of LaThuile2016, the XXXth Rencontres de Physique de la Vallée d'Aoste, March 6-12, 2016, La Thuile, Aosta Valley, Italy. To be published by Nuovo Cimento C