OPERA tau neutrino charged current interactions


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Agafonova N., Alexandrov A., Anokhina A., Aoki S., Ariga A., Ariga T., ...More

SCIENTIFIC DATA, vol.8, no.1, 2021 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 8 Issue: 1
  • Publication Date: 2021
  • Doi Number: 10.1038/s41597-021-00991-y
  • Journal Name: SCIENTIFIC DATA
  • Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, BIOSIS, EMBASE, INSPEC, MEDLINE, Directory of Open Access Journals
  • Ankara University Affiliated: No

Abstract

The OPERA experiment was designed to discover the v(tau) appearance in a v(mu) beam, due to neutrino oscillations. The detector, located in the underground Gran Sasso Laboratory, consisted of a nuclear photographic emulsion/lead target with a mass of about 1.25 kt, complemented by electronic detectors. It was exposed from 2008 to 2012 to the CNGS beam: an almost pure v(mu) beam with a baseline of 730 km, collecting a total of 1.8 center dot 10(20) protons on target. The OPERA Collaboration eventually assessed the discovery of v(mu)-> v(tau) oscillations with a statistical significance of 6.1 sigma by observing ten v(tau) CC interaction candidates. These events have been published on the Open Data Portal at CERN. This paper provides a ydetailed description of the v(tau) data sample to make it usable by the whole community.