Measurements of atmospheric neutrinos and antineutrinos in the MINOS Far Detector (1208.2915v2)

Abstract: This paper reports measurements of atmospheric neutrino and antineutrino interactions in the MINOS Far Detector, based on 2553 live-days (37.9 kton-years) of data. A total of 2072 candidate events are observed. These are separated into 905 contained-vertex muons and 466 neutrino-induced rock-muons, both produced by charged-current $\nu_{\mu}$ and $\bar{\nu}{\mu}$ interactions, and 701 contained-vertex showers, composed mainly of charged-current $\nu{e}$ and $\bar{\nu}{e}$ interactions and neutral-current interactions. The curvature of muon tracks in the magnetic field of the MINOS Far Detector is used to select separate samples of $\nu{\mu}$ and $\bar{\nu}{\mu}$ events. The observed ratio of $\bar{\nu}{\mu}$ to $\nu_{\mu}$ events is compared with the Monte Carlo simulation, giving a double ratio of $R^{data}{\bar{\nu}/\nu}/R^{MC}{\bar{\nu}/\nu} = 1.03 \pm 0.08 (stat.) \pm 0.08 (syst.)$. The $\nu_{\mu}$ and $\bar{\nu}{\mu}$ data are separated into bins of $L/E$ resolution, based on the reconstructed energy and direction of each event, and a maximum likelihood fit to the observed $L/E$ distributions is used to determine the atmospheric neutrino oscillation parameters. This fit returns 90% confidence limits of $|\Delta m^{2}| = (1.9 \pm 0.4) \times 10^{-3} eV^{2}$ and $sin^{2} 2\theta > 0.86$. The fit is extended to incorporate separate $\nu{\mu}$ and $\bar{\nu}{\mu}$ oscillation parameters, returning 90% confidence limits of $|\Delta m^{2}|-|\Delta \bar{m}^{2}| = 0.6^{+2.4}{-0.8} \times 10^{-3} eV^{2}$ on the difference between the squared-mass splittings for neutrinos and antineutrinos.