Measurement of atmospheric neutrino flux consistent with tau neutrino appearance

• Published in: Physical review letters Vol. 97; no. 17; p. 171801
• Main Authors: Abe, K, Hayato, Y, Iida, T, Ishihara, K, Kameda, J, Koshio, Y, Minamino, A, Mitsuda, C, Miura, M, Moriyama, S, Nakahata, M, Obayashi, Y, Ogawa, H, Shiozawa, M, Suzuki, Y, Takeda, A, Takeuchi, Y, Ueshima, K, Higuchi, I, Ishihara, C, Ishitsuka, M, Kajita, T, Kaneyuki, K, Mitsuka, G, Nakayama, S, Nishino, H, Okumura, K, Saji, C, Takenaga, Y, Totsuka, Y, Clark, S, Desai, S, Dufour, F, Kearns, E, Likhoded, S, Litos, M, Raaf, J L, Stone, J L, Sulak, L R, Wang, W, Goldhaber, M, Casper, D, Cravens, J P, Kropp, W R, Liu, D W, Mine, S, Regis, C, Smy, M B, Sobel, H W, Vagins, M R, Ganezer, K S, Hill, J E, Keig, W E, Jang, J S, Kim, J Y, Lim, I T, Scholberg, K, Tanimoto, N, Walter, C W, Wendell, R, Ellsworth, R W, Tasaka, S, Guillian, E, Learned, J G, Matsuno, S, Messier, M D, Ichikawa, A K, Ishida, T, Ishii, T, Iwashita, T, Kobayashi, T, Nakadaira, T, Nakamura, K, Nitta, K, Oyama, Y, Suzuki, A T, Hasegawa, M, Kato, I, Maesaka, H, Nakaya, T, Nishikawa, K, Sasaki, T, Sato, H, Yamamoto, S, Yokoyama, M, Haines, T J, Dazeley, S, Hatakeyama, S, Svoboda, R, Sullivan, G W, Habig, A, Gran, R, Fukuda, Y, Sato, T, Itow, Y, Koike, T, Jung, C K, Kato, T, Kobayashi, K, Malek, M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 27-10-2006
• Subjects: MEASURING METHODS; MUON NEUTRINOS; NEUTRON OSCILLATION; PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS; QUANTUM CHROMODYNAMICS; SIGNALS; TAU NEUTRINOS
• ISSN: 0031-9007; 1079-7114
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.171801

A search for the appearance of tau neutrinos from nu(mu) <--> nu(tau) oscillations in the atmospheric neutrinos has been performed using 1489.2 days of atmospheric neutrino data from the Super-Kamiokande-I experiment. A best fit tau neutrino appearance signal of 138+/-48(stat)-32(+15)(syst) events is obtained with an expectation of 78+/-26(syst). The hypothesis of no tau neutrino appearance is disfavored by 2.4 sigma.