Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2017
Volume 62, Number 1
Saturday–Tuesday, January 28–31, 2017; Washington, DC
Session J11: Neutrino I |
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Sponsoring Units: DPF Chair: Josh Klein, University of Pennsylvania Room: Roosevelt 3 |
Sunday, January 29, 2017 10:45AM - 10:57AM |
J11.00001: Atmospheric Tau Neutrino Appearance Analysis with IceCube/DeepCore Feifei Huang DeepCore is the low-energy subarray of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole, and provides sensitivity in the neutrino energy range above roughly 10 GeV, where Earth-crossing neutrinos experience oscillations. These neutrinos are muon and electron neutrinos produced in Earth's atmosphere via decays of particles from interactions between cosmic rays and the atmosphere. While tau neutrino interactions in DeepCore cannot be distinguished from those of electron neutrinos at these energies, a statistical separation of these two event classes can be made based on the reconstructed energy and zenith distribution. Therefore, tau neutrino appearance, mainly from muon neutrino to tau neutrino oscillations, can be measured with high significance using IceCube/DeepCore data. We present preliminary results of a tau neutrino appearance analysis using several years of IceCube/DeepCore data. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 29, 2017 10:57AM - 11:09AM |
J11.00002: Searching for Sterile Neutrinos at J-PARC with JSNS$^2$ Johnathon Jordan The J-PARC Sterile Neutrino Search at the J-PARC Spallation Neutron Source (JSNS$^2$) will look for neutrino oscillations with a characteristic frequency of $\Delta m^2 \sim$ 1 eV$^2$ . The experiment will be constructed at the J-PARC Material and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF) and will perform a search for $\bar{\nu}_\mu \rightarrow \bar{\nu}_e$ oscillations over a 24 m baseline using muon decay at rest neutrinos originating from 3 GeV proton interactions with a mercury target. Using two tanks of Gd-doped liquid scintillator with a total fiducial volume of 50 tons, JSNS$^2$ will exploit the unique signature of inverse beta decay (prompt positron signal, delayed gammas from neutron capture) to look for $\bar{\nu}_e$ appearance. Additionally, JSNS$^2$ will enable novel cross section measurements using 236 MeV muon neutrinos from charged kaon decay at rest (KDAR). [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 29, 2017 11:09AM - 11:21AM |
J11.00003: Prospects of Light Sterile Neutrino Oscillation and CP Violation Searches at the Fermilab Short Baseline Neutrino Facility Davio Cianci, Mark Ross-Lonergan, Georgia Karagiorgi, Andy Furmanski While current and last generation neutrino experiments have vastly improved our knowledge of the three neutrino oscillation paradigm, certain anomalous experimental signatures such as the LSND and MiniBooNE anomalies have arisen which have consistently evaded a standard three neutrino explanation. One possible scenario to explain these anomalies is the addition of one or more, mostly sterile, light neutrino mass states, leading to observable oscillations associated to new frequencies at relatively short baselines. This talk will describe how Fermilab’s Short Baseline Neutrino (SBN) program will be uniquely poised to test the existence of light sterile neutrinos in scenarios including one, two or three such new states. To quantify SBN’s sensitivity reach, we compare the experiment’s sensitivity to current, globally-allowed parameters for sterile neutrino oscillations. We also explore the possibility of including antineutrino beam running in the SBN run plan and study its impact on the potential physics reach, in particular from the perspective of new CP-violating phases which appear in these extended oscillation scenarios. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 29, 2017 11:21AM - 11:33AM |
J11.00004: NOvA Short-Baseline Tau-Neutrino Appearance Search Rijeesh Keloth Three-flavor neutrino oscillations have successfully explained a wide range of neutrino oscillation experiment results. However, anomalous results, such as the electron-antineutrino appearance excess seen by LSND and MiniBooNE, do not fit the three-flavor paradigm and can be explained by the addition of a sterile neutrino at a larger mass scale than the existing three flavor mass states. The NOvA experiment consists of two finely segmented, liquid scintillator detectors operating 14 .6 mrad off-axis from the NuMI muon-neutrino beam. The Near Detector is located on the Fermilab campus, 1 km from the NuMI target, while the Far Detector is located at Ash River, MN, 810 km from the NuMI target. The NOvA experiment is primarily designed to measure electron-neutrino appearance at the Far Detector using the Near Detector to control systematic uncertainties; however, the Near Detector is well suited for searching for anomalous short-baseline oscillations. I will present a novel method for selecting tau neutrino interactions with high purity at the Near Detector using a convolutional neural network. Using this method, the sensitivity to anomalous short-baseline tau-neutrino appearance due to sterile neutrino oscillations will be presented. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 29, 2017 11:33AM - 11:45AM |
J11.00005: Long-baseline Neutrino Oscillation at DUNE Elizabeth Worcester The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment with primary physics goals of determining the neutrino mass hierarchy and measuring $delta_CP$ with sufficient sensitivity to discover CP violation in neutrino oscillation. CP violation sensitivity in DUNE requires careful understanding of systematic uncertainty, with contributions expected from uncertainties in the neutrino flux, neutrino interactions, and detector effects. In this presentation, we will describe the expected sensitivity of DUNE to long-baseline neutrino oscillation parameters, how various aspects of the experimental design contribute to that sensitivity, and the planned strategy for constraining systematic uncertainty in these measurements. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 29, 2017 11:45AM - 11:57AM |
J11.00006: Looking for Sterile Neutrinos via Neutral-Current Disappearance with NOvA. Shaokai Yang Contradictory evidence has been presented on the issue of neutrino mixing between the three known active neutrinos and light sterile neutrinos. The excess of events as seen by the LSND and MiniBooNE experiments interpreted as short-baseline neutrino oscillations, the collective evidence of the reactor neutrino anomaly, and the gallium anomaly all point towards sterile neutrinos with mass at the 1 eV level. While these results are tantalizing, they are not conclusive as they are in tension with null results from other short-baseline experiments, and with disappearance searches in long-baseline and atmospheric experiments. Resolving the issue of the existence of light sterile neutrinos has profound implications for both particle physics and cosmology. The NOvA (NuMI Off-Axis $\nu $e Appearance) experiment may help clarify the situation by searching for disappearance of active neutrinos from the NuMI (Neutrinos from the Main Injector) beam over a baseline of 810 km. In this talk, we will describe a method of how NOvA can look for oscillations into sterile neutrinos, with focus on disappearance of neutral current (NC) neutrino events, will present the first analysis result of this search, discuss their implications in constraining the existence of light sterile neutrinos, and the planned updates to this analysis. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 29, 2017 11:57AM - 12:09PM |
J11.00007: Reactor Antineutrino Flux and Spectrum Shape from Daya Bay Jim Napolitano The Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment has collected very large samples of $\bar\nu_ep\to e^+n$ events, where the $\bar\nu_e$ are from the cores of six power plant reactors that undergo regular refueling. With 621 days of data, more than 1.2 million events of this type were detected. The collaboration has analyzed these data in terms of the absolute flux (addressing the ``Reactor Neutrino Anomaly''), the spectrum shape (including the excess in the region of 5~MeV prompt energy), and other effects. This talk will summarize the results from our most recent analyses, and discuss new initiatives aimed at continuing to understand the fine detail of the reactor $\bar\nu_e$ spectrum. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 29, 2017 12:09PM - 12:21PM |
J11.00008: Search for sterile neutrino oscillations in muon neutrino disappearance at MINOS/MINOS+ Jacob Todd A wide variety of neutrino oscillation phenomena are well-described by the standard three-flavour neutrino model, but some anomalies exist. The LSND and MiniBooNE experiments have measured electron antineutrino appearance in excess of standard oscillation predictions, which points to the possibility of a sterile neutrino with higher mass than the presently known states. MINOS, a two-detector, long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment, was optimized for the measurement of muon neutrino disappearance in the NuMI neutrino beam. A sterile neutrino responsible for the LSND and MiniBooNE excesses would cause distortions in the charged current and neutral current MINOS spectra, which permits the search for sterile neutrinos at MINOS. In close collaboration with the Daya Bay reactor neutrino experiment, MINOS has placed strong constraints on the sterile neutrino parameter space for a model with one additional sterile neutrino. Further, the extension of data collection with MINOS+, which samples the NuMI beam in a medium energy configuration, markedly increases the sensitivity of the combined MINOS and MINOS+ sample to a 3+1-flavour sterile neutrino model. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 29, 2017 12:21PM - 12:33PM |
J11.00009: The status and initial results of the {\sc Majorana Demonstrator} Xiaoyu Zhu The {\sc Majorana Demonstrator} is an ultra-low background experiment searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay in $^{76}$Ge at the Sanford Underground Research Facility. The search for neutrinoless double-beta decay could determine the Dirac vs Majorana nature of neutrino mass and provide insight to the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the Universe. The {\sc Demonstrator} is comprised of 44.8 kg (30 kg enriched in $^{76}$Ge) of high purity Ge detectors separated into two modules. Construction and commissioning of both modules completed in Summer 2016 and both modules are now acquiring physics data. In my talk, I will discuss the initial results of the first physics run utilizing both modules focusing primarily on the studies of the background and projections to a ton-scale experiment. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics, the Particle Astrophysics Program of the National Science Foundation, and the Sanford Underground Research Facility. We acknowledge the support of the U.S. Department of Energy through the LANL/LDRD Program. [Preview Abstract] |
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