106 research outputs found
Determination of the muon charge sign with the dipolar spectrometers of the OPERA experiment
The OPERA long-baseline neutrino-oscillation experiment has observed the
direct appearance of in the CNGS beam. Two large muon
magnetic spectrometers are used to identify muons produced in the
leptonic decay and in interactions by measuring their charge and
momentum. Besides the kinematic analysis of the decays, background
resulting from the decay of charmed particles produced in
interactions is reduced by efficiently identifying the muon track. A new method
for the charge sign determination has been applied, via a weighted angular
matching of the straight track-segments reconstructed in the different parts of
the dipole magnets. Results obtained for Monte Carlo and real data are
presented. Comparison with a method where no matching is used shows a
significant reduction of up to 40\% of the fraction of wrongly determined
charges.Comment: 10 pages. Improvements in the tex
Procedure for short-lived particle detection in the OPERA experiment and its application to charm decays
The OPERA experiment, designed to perform the first observation of oscillations in appearance mode through the detection of
the leptons produced in charged current interactions, has
collected data from 2008 to 2012. In the present paper, the procedure developed
to detect particle decays, occurring over distances of the order of 1 mm
from the neutrino interaction point, is described in detail. The results of its
application to the search for charmed hadrons are then presented as a
validation of the methods for appearance detection
Observation of nu_tau appearance in the CNGS beam with the OPERA experiment
The OPERA experiment is searching for nu_mu -> nu_tau oscillations in
appearance mode i.e. via the direct detection of tau leptons in nu_tau charged
current interactions. The evidence of nu_mu -> nu_tau appearance has been
previously reported with three nu_tau candidate events using a sub-sample of
data from the 2008-2012 runs. We report here a fourth nu_tau candidate event,
with the tau decaying into a hadron, found after adding the 2012 run events
without any muon in the final state to the data sample. Given the number of
analysed events and the low background, nu_mu -> nu_tau oscillations are
established with a significance of 4.2sigma.Comment: Submitted to Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (PTEP
Evidence for appearance in the CNGS neutrino beam with the OPERA experiment
The OPERA experiment is designed to search for oscillations in appearance mode i.e. through the direct observation
of the lepton in charged current interactions. The
experiment has taken data for five years, since 2008, with the CERN Neutrino to
Gran Sasso beam. Previously, two candidates with a decaying
into hadrons were observed in a sub-sample of data of the 2008-2011 runs. Here
we report the observation of a third candidate in the
decay channel coming from the analysis of a sub-sample of the
2012 run. Taking into account the estimated background, the absence of
oscillations is excluded at the 3.4
level.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, 1 table
NEWSdm Collaboration
Direct Dark Matter searches are nowadays one of the most fervid research topics with many experimental efforts devoted to the search for nuclear recoils induced by the scattering of Weakly Interactive Massive Particles (WIMPs). Detectors able to reconstruct the direction of the nucleus recoiling against the scattering WIMP are opening a new frontier to possibly extend Dark Matter searches beyond the neutrino background. Exploiting directionality would also prove the galactic origin of Dark Matter with an unambiguous signal-to-background separation. Indeed, the angular distribution of recoiled nuclei is centered around the direction of the Cygnus constellation, while the background distribution is expected to be isotropic. Current directional experiments are based on gas TPC whose sensitivity is limited by the small achievable detector mass. In this paper we present the discovery potential of a directional experiment based on the use of a solid target made of newly developed nuclear emulsions and of optical read-out systems reaching unprecedented nanometric resolution
Directional Sensitivity of the NEWSdm Experiment to Cosmic Ray Boosted Dark Matter
We present a study of a directional search for Dark Matter boosted forward
when scattered by cosmic-ray nuclei, using a module of the NEWSdm experiment.
The boosted Dark Matter flux at the edge of the Earth's atmosphere is expected
to be pointing to the Galactic Center, with a flux 15 to 20 times larger than
in the transverse direction.
The module of the NEWSdm experiment consists of a 10 kg stack of Nano Imaging
Trackers, i.e.~newly developed nuclear emulsions with AgBr crystal sizes down
to a few tens of nanometers. The module is installed on an equatorial
telescope. The relatively long recoil tracks induced by boosted Dark Matter,
combined with the nanometric granularity of the emulsion, result in an
extremely low background. This makes an installation at the INFN Gran Sasso
laboratory, both on the surface and underground, viable. A comparison between
the two locations is made. The angular distribution of nuclear recoils induced
by boosted Dark Matter in the emulsion films at the surface laboratory is
expected to show an excess with a factor of 3.5 in the direction of the
Galactic Center. This excess allows for a Dark Matter search with directional
sensitivity. The surface laboratory configuration prevents the deterioration of
the signal in the rock overburden and it emerges as the most powerful approach
for a directional observation of boosted Dark Matter with high sensitivity. We
show that, with this approach, a 10 kg module of the NEWSdm experiment exposed
for one year at the Gran Sasso surface laboratory can probe Dark Matter masses
between 1 keV/c and 1 GeV/c and cross-section values down to
~cm with a directional sensitive search.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures, updated references, clarified discussion in
intro section. Submitted to JCA
Final results on neutrino oscillation parameters from the OPERA experiment in the CNGS beam
International audienceThe OPERA experiment has conclusively observed the appearance of tau neutrinos in the muon neutrino CNGS beam. Exploiting the OPERA detector capabilities, it was possible to isolate high purity samples of νe, νμ and ντ charged current weak neutrino interactions, as well as neutral current weak interactions. In this paper, the full dataset is used for the first time to test the three-flavor neutrino oscillation model and to derive constraints on the existence of a light sterile neutrino within the framework of the 3+1 neutrino model. For the first time, tau and electron neutrino appearance channels are jointly used to test the sterile neutrino hypothesis. A significant fraction of the sterile neutrino parameter space allowed by LSND and MiniBooNE experiments is excluded at 90% C.L. In particular, the best-fit values obtained by MiniBooNE combining neutrino and antineutrino data are excluded at 3.3σ significance
Measurement of the cosmic ray muon flux seasonal variation with the OPERA detector
The OPERA experiment discovered muon neutrino into tau neutrino oscillations
in appearance mode, detecting tau leptons by means of nuclear emulsion films.
The apparatus was also endowed with electronic detectors with tracking
capability, such as scintillator strips and resistive plate chambers. Because
of its location, in the underground Gran Sasso laboratory, under 3800 m.w.e.,
the OPERA detector has also been used as an observatory for TeV muons produced
by cosmic rays in the atmosphere. In this paper the measurement of the single
muon flux modulation and of its correlation with the seasonal variation of the
atmospheric temperature are reported
Measurement of the cosmic ray muon flux seasonal variation with the OPERA detector
The OPERA experiment discovered muon neutrino into tau neutrino oscillations in appearance mode, detecting tau leptons by means of nuclear emulsion films. The apparatus was also endowed with electronic detectors with tracking capability, such as scintillator strips and resistive plate chambers. Because of its location in the underground Gran Sasso laboratory, under 3800 m.w.e., the OPERA detector has also been used as an observatory for TeV muons produced by cosmic rays in the atmosphere. In this paper the measurement of the single muon flux modulation and its correlation with the seasonal cycle of atmospheric temperature is reported
Updated constraints on sterile neutrino mixing in the OPERA experiment using a new identification method
This paper describes a new identification method specifically
designed to improve the low-energy ()
identification efficiency attained by enlarging the emulsion film scanning
volume with the next generation emulsion readout system. A relative increase of
25-70% in the low-energy region is expected, leading to improvements in
the OPERA sensitivity to neutrino oscillations in the framework of the 3 + 1
model. The method is applied to a subset of data where the detection efficiency
increase is expected to be more relevant, and one additional candidate
is found. The analysis combined with the appearance results improves
the upper limit on to 0.016 at 90% C.L. in the
MiniBooNE allowed region .Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure
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