1. Search for active-sterile neutrino mixing using neutral-current interactions in NOvA
- Author
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NOvA Collaboration, Adamson, P., Aliaga, L., Ambrose, D., Anfimov, N., Antoshkin, A., Arrieta-Diaz, E., Augsten, K., Aurisano, A., Backhouse, C., Baird, M., Bambah, B. A., Bays, K., Behera, B., Bending, S., Bernstein, R., Bhatnagar, V., Bhuyan, B., Bian, J., Blackburn, T., Bolshakova, A., Bromberg, C., Brown, J., Brunetti, G., Buchanan, N., Butkevich, A., Bychkov, V., Campbell, M., Catano-Mur, E., Childress, S., Choudhary, B. C., Chowdhury, B., Coan, T. E., Coelho, J. A. B., Colo, M., Cooper, J., Corwin, L., Cremonesi, L., Cronin-Hennessy, D., Davies, G. S., Davies, J. P., Derwent, P. F., Dharmapalan, R., Ding, P., Djurcic, Z., Dukes, E. C., Duyang, H., Edayath, S., Ehrlich, R., Feldman, G. J., Frank, M. J., Gabrielyan, M., Gallagher, H. R., Germani, S., Ghosh, T., Giri, A., Gomes, R. A., Goodman, M. C., Grichine, V., Groh, M., Group, R., Grover, D., Guo, B., Habig, A., Hartnell, J., Hatcher, R., Hatzikoutelis, A., Heller, K., Himmel, A., Holin, A., Howard, B., Hylen, J., Jediny, F., Judah, M., Kafka, G. K., Kalra, D., Kasahara, S. M. S., Kasetti, S., Keloth, R., Kolupaeva, L., Kotelnikov, S., Kourbanis, I., Kreymer, A., Kumar, A., Kurbanov, S., Lackey, T., Lang, K., Lee, W. M., Lin, S., Lokajicek, M., Lozier, J., Luchuk, S., Maan, K., Magill, S., Mann, W. A., Marshak, M. L., Matera, K., Matveev, V., Méndez, D. P., Messier, M. D., Meyer, H., Miao, T., Miller, W. H., Mishra, S. R., Mohanta, R., Moren, A., Mualem, L., Muether, M., Mufson, S., Murphy, R., Musser, J., Nelson, J. K., Nichol, R., Niner, E., Norman, A., Nosek, T., Oksuzian, Y., Olshevskiy, A., Olson, T., Paley, J., Patterson, R. B., Pawloski, G., Pershey, D., Petrova, O., Petti, R., Phan-Budd, S., Plunkett, R. K., Poling, R., Potukuchi, B., Principato, C., Psihas, F., Radovic, A., Rameika, R. A., Rebel, B., Reed, B., Rocco, D., Rojas, P., Ryabov, V., Sachdev, K., Sail, P., Samoylov, O., Sanchez, M. C., Schroeter, R., Sepulveda-Quiroz, J., Shanahan, P., Sheshukov, A., Singh, J., Singh, P., Singh, V., Smolik, J., Solomey, N., Song, E., Sousa, A., Soustruznik, K., Strait, M., Suter, L., Talaga, R. L., Tas, P., Thayyullathil, R. B., Thomas, J., Tian, X., Tognini, S. C., Tripathi, J., Tsaris, A., Urheim, J., Vahle, P., Vasel, J., Vinton, L., Vold, A., Vrba, T., Wang, B., Wetstein, M., Whittington, D., Wojcicki, S. G., Wolcott, J., Yadav, N., Yang, S., Zalesak, J., Zamorano, B., and Zwaska, R.
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High Energy Physics - Experiment - Abstract
We report results from the first search for sterile neutrinos mixing with active neutrinos through a reduction in the rate of neutral-current interactions over a baseline of 810\,km between the NOvA detectors. Analyzing a 14-kton detector equivalent exposure of 6.05$\times$10$^{20}$ protons-on-target in the NuMI beam at Fermilab, we observe 95 neutral-current candidates at the Far Detector compared with $83.5 \pm 9.7 \mbox{(stat.)} \pm 9.4 \mbox{(syst.)}$ events predicted assuming mixing only occurs between active neutrino species. No evidence for $\nu_{\mu} \rightarrow \nu_{s}$ transitions is found. Interpreting these results within a 3+1 model, we place constraints on the mixing angles $\theta_{24}<20.8^{\circ}$ and $\theta_{34}<31.2^{\circ}$ at the 90% C.L. for $0.05~eV^2\leq \Delta m^2_{41}\leq 0.5~eV^2$, the range of mass splittings that produce no significant oscillations over the Near Detector baseline., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures
- Published
- 2017
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