Search

This paper reports measurements of final-state proton multiplicity, muon and proton kinematics, and their correlations in charged-current pionless neutrino interactions, measured by the T2K ND280 near detector in its plastic scintillator (${\mathrm{C}}_8{\mathrm{H}}_8$) target. The data were taken between years 2010 and 2013, corresponding to approximately $6\times {10}^{20}$ protons on target. Thanks to their exploration of the proton kinematics and of imbalances between the proton and muon kinematics, the results offer a novel probe of the nuclear-medium effects most pertinent to the (sub-)GeV neutrino-nucleus interactions that are used in accelerator-based long-baseline neutrino oscillation measurements. These results are compared to many neutrino-nucleus interaction models which all fail to describe at least part of the observed phase space. In case of events without a proton above a detection threshold in the final state, a fully consistent implementation of the local Fermi gas model with multinucleon interactions gives the best description of the data. In the case of at least one proton in the final state, the spectral function model agrees well with the data, most notably when measuring the kinematic imbalance between the muon and the proton in the plane transverse to the incoming neutrino. Within the models considered, only the existence of multinucleon interactions are able to describe the extracted cross section within regions of high transverse kinematic imbalance. The effect of final-state interactions is also discussed.

The T2K experiment measures muon neutrino disappearance and electron neutrino appearance in accelerator-produced neutrino and antineutrino beams. With an exposure of $14.7(7.6)\times {10}^{20}$ protons on target in the neutrino (antineutrino) mode, 89 ${\nu }_e$ candidates and seven anti-${\nu }_e$ candidates are observed, while 67.5 and 9.0 are expected for ${\delta }_{CP}=0$ and normal mass ordering. The obtained $2\sigma$ confidence interval for the $CP$-violating phase, ${\delta }_{CP}$, does not include the $CP$-conserving cases (${\delta }_{CP}=0$, $\pi$). The best-fit values of other parameters are ${\sin }^2{\theta }_{23}=0.526_{-0.036}^{+0.032}$ and $\mathrm{\Delta }{m}_{32}^2={2.463}_{-0.070}^{+0.071}\times {10}^{-3}{\mathrm{eV}}^2/c^4$.

A measurement of the diffuse astrophysical neutrino spectrum is presented using IceCube data collected from 2011–2022 (10.3 years). We developed novel detection techniques to search for events with a contained vertex and exiting track induced by muon neutrinos undergoing a charged-current interaction. Searching for these starting track events allows us to not only more effectively reject atmospheric muons but also atmospheric neutrino backgrounds in the southern sky, opening a new window to the sub-100 TeV astrophysical neutrino sky. The event selection is constructed using a dynamic starting track veto and machine learning algorithms. We use this data to measure the astrophysical diffuse flux as a single power law flux (SPL) with a best-fit spectral index of $\gamma =2.58_{-0.09}^{+0.10}$ and per-flavor normalization of ${\varphi }_{\mathrm{per}\text{-flavor}}^{\text{Astro}}=1.68_{-0.22}^{+0.19}\times {10}^{-18}\times {\mathrm{GeV}}^{-1}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}{\mathrm{sr}}^{-1}$ (at 100 TeV). The sensitive energy range for this dataset is 3–550 TeV under the SPL assumption. This data was also used to measure the flux under a broken power law, however we did not find any evidence of a low energy cutoff.

We present a search for an unstable sterile neutrino by looking for a resonant signal in eight years of atmospheric ${\nu }_{\mu }$ data collected from 2011 to 2019 at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. Both the (stable) three-neutrino and the $3+1$ sterile neutrino models are disfavored relative to the unstable sterile neutrino model, though with $p$ values of 2.8% and 0.81%, respectively, we do not observe evidence for $3+1$ neutrinos with neutrino decay. The best-fit parameters for the sterile neutrino with decay model from this study are $\mathrm{\Delta }{m}_{41}^2=6.7_{-2.5}^{+3.9}{\mathrm{eV}}^2$, ${\sin }^{2}2{\theta }_{24}=0.33_{-0.17}^{+0.20}$, and $g^2=2.5\pi \pm 1.5\pi$, where $g$ is the decay-mediating coupling. The preferred regions of the $3+1+\text{decay}$ model from short-baseline oscillation searches are excluded at 90% C.L.

This article presents a study of single ${\pi }^{+}$ production in neutrino neutral-current interactions ($\mathrm{NC}1{\pi }^{+}$) using the FGD1 hydrocarbon target of the ND280 detector of the T2K experiment. We report the largest sample of such events selected by any experiment, providing the first new data for this channel in over four decades and the first using a sub-GeV neutrino flux. The signal selection strategy and its performance are detailed together with validations of a robust cross section extraction methodology. The measured flux-averaged integrated cross-section is $\sigma =(6.07\pm 1.22)\times {10}^{-41}{\mathrm{cm}}^2/\mathrm{nucleon}$, $1.3\sigma$ above the NEUT v5.4.0 expectation.

We report the first measurement of neutron capture multiplicity in neutrino-oxygen neutral-current quasielasticlike interactions at the gadolinium-loaded Super-Kamiokande detector using the T2K neutrino beam, which has a peak energy of about 0.6 GeV. A total of 30 neutral-current quasielasticlike event candidates were selected from T2K data corresponding to an exposure of $1.76\times {10}^{20}$ protons on target. The $\gamma$ ray signals resulting from neutron captures were identified using a neural network. The flux-averaged mean neutron capture multiplicity was measured to be ${1.37\pm 0.33(\mathrm{stat}.)}_{-0.27}^{+0.17}(\mathrm{syst}.)$, which is compatible within 2.3 sigma than predictions obtained using our nominal simulation. We discuss potential sources of systematic uncertainty in the prediction and demonstrate that a significant portion of this discrepancy arises from the modeling of hadron-nucleus interactions in the detector medium.

We report constraints on nonstandard neutrino interactions (NSI) from the observation of atmospheric neutrinos with IceCube, limiting all individual coupling strengths from a single dataset. Furthermore, IceCube is the first experiment to constrain flavor-violating and nonuniversal couplings simultaneously. Hypothetical NSI are generically expected to arise due to the exchange of a new heavy mediator particle. Neutrinos propagating in matter scatter off fermions in the forward direction with negligible momentum transfer. Hence the study of the matter effect on neutrinos propagating in the Earth is sensitive to NSI independently of the energy scale of new physics. We present constraints on NSI obtained with an all-flavor event sample of atmospheric neutrinos based on three years of IceCube DeepCore data. The analysis uses neutrinos arriving from all directions, with reconstructed energies between 5.6 GeV and 100 GeV. We report constraints on the individual NSI coupling strengths considered singly, allowing for complex phases in the case of flavor-violating couplings. This demonstrates that IceCube is sensitive to the full NSI flavor structure at a level competitive with limits from the global analysis of all other experiments. In addition, we investigate a generalized matter potential, whose overall scale and flavor structure are also constrained.

The Super-Kamiokande and T2K Collaborations present a joint measurement of neutrino oscillation parameters from their atmospheric and beam neutrino data. It uses a common interaction model for events overlapping in neutrino energy and correlated detector systematic uncertainties between the two datasets, which are found to be compatible. Using 3244.4 days of atmospheric data and a beam exposure of $19.7(16.3)\times {10}^{20}$ protons on target in (anti)neutrino mode, the analysis finds a $1.9\sigma$ exclusion of $CP$ conservation (defined as $J_{CP}=0$) and a $1.2\sigma$ exclusion of the inverted mass ordering.

IceCube has observed a diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux over the energy region from a few TeV to a few PeV. At PeV energies, the spectral shape is not yet well measured due to the low statistics of the data. This analysis probes the gap between 1 and 10 PeV by using high-energy downgoing muon neutrinos. To reject the large atmospheric muon background, two complementary techniques are combined. The first technique selects events with high stochasticity to reject atmospheric muon bundles whose stochastic energy losses are smoothed due to high muon multiplicity. The second technique vetoes atmospheric muons with the IceTop surface array. Using 9 yrs of data, we found two neutrino candidate events in the signal region, consistent with expectation from background, each with relatively high signal probabilities. A joint maximum likelihood estimation is performed using this sample and an independent 9.5-yr sample of tracks to measure the neutrino spectrum. A likelihood ratio test is done to compare the single power-law (SPL) vs $\mathrm{SPL}+\mathrm{cutoff}$ hypothesis; the $\mathrm{SPL}+\mathrm{cutoff}$ model is not significantly better than the SPL. High-energy astrophysical objects from four source catalogs are also checked around the direction of the two events. No significant coincidence was found.

We have made improved measurements of three-flavor neutrino mixing with $19.7(16.3)\times {10}^{20}$ protons on target in (anti-)neutrino-enhanced beam modes. A new sample of muon-neutrino events with tagged pions has been added at the far detector, as well as new proton and photon-tagged samples at the near detector. Significant improvements have been made to the flux and neutrino interaction modeling. T2K data continue to prefer the normal mass ordering and upper octant of ${\sin }^2{\theta }_{23}$ with a near-maximal value of the charge-parity violating phase with best-fit values in the normal ordering of ${\delta }_{\mathrm{CP}}=-{2.18}_{-0.47}^{+1.22}$, ${\sin }^2{\theta }_{23}={0.559}_{-0.078}^{+0.018}$ and $\mathrm{\Delta }{m}_{32}^2=({+2.506}_{-0.052}^{+0.039})\times {10}^{-3}{\mathrm{eV}}^2$.

The seminal theoretical works of Berezinskii, Kosterlitz, and Thouless presented a paradigm for phase transitions in condensed matter that are driven by topological excitations. These transitions have been extensively studied in the context of two-dimensional XY models—coupled compasses—and have generated interest in the context of quantum simulation. Here, we use a circuit quantum-electrodynamics architecture to study the critical behavior of engineered XY models through their dynamical response. In particular, we examine not only the unfrustrated case but also the fully frustrated case which leads to enhanced degeneracy associated with the spin rotational $\left[\mathrm{U}\right(1\left)\right]$ and discrete chiral ($Z_2$) symmetries. The nature of the transition in the frustrated case has posed a challenge for theoretical studies while direct experimental probes remain elusive. Here we identify the transition temperatures for both the unfrustrated and fully frustrated XY models by probing a Josephson junction array close to equilibrium using weak microwave excitations and measuring the temperature dependence of the effective damping obtained from the complex reflection coefficient. We argue that our probing technique is primarily sensitive to the dynamics of the $\mathrm{U}\left(1\right)$ part.

An analysis of solar neutrino data from the fourth phase of Super-Kamiokande (SK-IV) from October 2008 to May 2018 is performed and the results are presented. The observation time of the dataset of SK-IV corresponds to 2970 days and the total live time for all four phases is 5805 days. For more precise solar neutrino measurements, several improvements are applied in this analysis: lowering the data acquisition threshold in May 2015, further reduction of the spallation background using neutron clustering events, precise energy reconstruction considering the time variation of the PMT gain. The observed number of solar neutrino events in 3.49–19.49 MeV electron kinetic energy region during SK-IV is ${\mathrm{65,443}}_{-388}^{+390}(\mathrm{stat}.)\pm 925(\mathrm{syst}.)$ events. Corresponding ${}^8\mathrm{B}$ solar neutrino flux is $(2.314\pm 0.014(\mathrm{stat}.)\pm 0.040(\mathrm{syst}.))\times {10}^6{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$, assuming a pure electron-neutrino flavor component without neutrino oscillations. The flux combined with all SK phases up to SK-IV is $(2.336\pm 0.011(\mathrm{stat}.)\pm 0.043(\mathrm{syst}.))\times {10}^6{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$. Based on the neutrino oscillation analysis from all solar experiments, including the SK 5805 days dataset, the best-fit neutrino oscillation parameters are ${\sin }^2{\theta }_{12,\mathrm{solar}}=0.306\pm 0.013$ and $\mathrm{\Delta }{m}_{21,\text{solar}}^2=(6.10_{-0.81}^{+0.95})\times {10}^{-5}{\mathrm{eV}}^2$, with a deviation of about $1.5\sigma$ from the $\mathrm{\Delta }{m}_{21}^2$ parameter obtained by KamLAND. The best-fit neutrino oscillation parameters obtained from all solar experiments and KamLAND are ${\sin }^2{\theta }_{12,\text{global}}=0.307\pm 0.012$ and $\mathrm{\Delta }{m}_{21,\text{global}}^2=(7.50_{-0.18}^{+0.19})\times {10}^{-5}{\mathrm{eV}}^2$.

Super-Kamiokande (SK) has observed ${}^8\mathrm{B}$ solar neutrino elastic scattering at recoil electron kinetic energies ($E_{\mathrm{kin}}$) as low as 3.49 MeV to study neutrino flavor conversion within the Sun. At SK-observable energies, these conversions are dominated by the Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein effect. An upturn in the electron neutrino survival probability in which vacuum neutrino oscillations become dominant is predicted to occur at lower energies, but radioactive background increases exponentially with decreasing energy. New machine learning approaches provide substantial background reduction below 3.49 MeV such that statistical extraction of solar neutrino interactions becomes feasible. This article presents an analysis of the solar neutrino interaction rate at $E_{\mathrm{kin}}<3.49\mathrm{MeV}$ with the full SK-IV period, using data from a wideband intelligent trigger when available and with a boosted decision tree for event selection. A solar neutrino signal is observed between $2.99\mathrm{MeV}<E_{\mathrm{kin}}<3.49\mathrm{MeV}$ with $2.76\sigma$ significance and a data to unoscillated Monte Carlo ratio of ${0.307}_{-0.111}^{+0.112}$. These additional low-energy data have a negligible effect on the $1\sigma$ intervals of the fits to the solar neutrino energy spectrum but have a noticeable effect on the best fit when using the exponential parametrization.

We report a measurement of cross section $\sigma ({\nu }_{\mu }+\text{nucleus}\to {\mu }^{-}+X)$ and the first measurements of the cross section $\sigma ({\overline{\nu }}_{\mu }+\text{nucleus}\to {\mu }^{+}+X)$ and their ratio $R(\frac{\sigma (\overline{\nu })}{\sigma (\nu )})$ at (anti) neutrino energies below 1.5 GeV. We determine the single momentum bin cross section measurements, averaged over the T2K $\overline{\nu }/\nu$-flux, for the detector target material (mainly carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and copper) with phase space restricted laboratory frame kinematics of ${\theta }_{\mu }<32°$ and $p_{\mu }>500\mathrm{MeV}/c$. The results are $\sigma (\overline{\nu })=(0.900\pm 0.029(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.088(\mathrm{syst}))\times {10}^{-39}$ and $\sigma (\nu )=(2.41\pm 0.022(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.231(\mathrm{syst}))\times {10}^{-39}$ in units of ${\mathrm{cm}}^2/\mathrm{nucleon}$ and $R(\frac{\sigma (\overline{\nu })}{\sigma (\nu )})=0.373\pm 0.012(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.015(\mathrm{syst})$.

We present a search for an eV-scale sterile neutrino using 7.5 years of data from the IceCube DeepCore detector. The analysis uses a sample of 21,914 events with energies between 5 and 150 GeV to search for sterile neutrinos through atmospheric muon neutrino disappearance. Improvements in event selection and treatment of systematic uncertainties provide greater statistical power compared to previous DeepCore sterile neutrino searches. Our results are compatible with the absence of mixing between active and sterile neutrino states, and we place constraints on the mixing matrix elements $|U_{\mu 4}{|}^2<0.0534$ and $|U_{\tau 4}{|}^2<0.0574$ at 90% CL under the assumption that $\mathrm{\Delta }{m}_{41}^2\ge 1{\mathrm{eV}}^2$. These null results add to the growing tension between anomalous appearance results and constraints from disappearance searches in the $3+1$ sterile neutrino landscape.

This Letter presents the result of a $3+1$ sterile neutrino search using 10.7 yr of IceCube data. We analyze atmospheric muon neutrinos that traverse the Earth with energies ranging from 0.5 to 100 TeV, incorporating significant improvements in modeling neutrino flux and detector response compared to earlier studies. Notably, for the first time, we categorize data into starting and throughgoing events, distinguishing neutrino interactions with vertices inside or outside the instrumented volume, to improve energy resolution. The best-fit point for a $3+1$ model is found to be at ${\sin }^2(2{\theta }_{24})=0.16$ and $\mathrm{\Delta }{m}_{41}^2=3.5{\mathrm{eV}}^2$, which agrees with previous iterations of this Letter. The result is consistent with the null hypothesis of no sterile neutrinos with a $p$ value of 3.1%.

We report a measurement of the flux-integrated cross section for inclusive muon neutrino charged-current interactions on carbon. The double-differential measurements are given as a function of the muon momentum and angle. Relative to our previous publication on this topic, these results have an increased angular acceptance and higher statistics. The data sample presented here corresponds to $5.7\times {10}^{20}$ protons on target. The total flux-integrated cross section is measured to be $(6.950\pm 0.662)\times {10}^{-39}{\mathrm{cm}}^2{\text{nucleon}}^{-1}$ and is consistent with our simulation.

The single ${\pi }^0$ production rate in neutral current neutrino interactions on water in a neutrino beam with a peak neutrino energy of 0.6 GeV has been measured using the PØD, one of the subdetectors of the T2K near detector. The production rate was measured for data taking periods when the PØD contained water ($2.64\times {10}^{20}$ protons-on-target) and also periods without water ($3.49\times {10}^{20}$ protons-on-target). A measurement of the neutral current single ${\pi }^0$ production rate on water is made using appropriate subtraction of the production rate with water in from the rate with water out of the target region. The subtraction analysis yields $106\pm 41\pm 69$ signal events where the uncertainties are statistical (stat.) and systematic (sys.) respectively. This is consistent with the prediction of 157 events from the nominal simulation. The measured to expected ratio is $0.68\pm 0.26(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.44(\mathrm{sys})\pm 0.12(\mathrm{flux})$. The nominal simulation uses a flux integrated cross section of $7.63\times {10}^{-39}{\mathrm{cm}}^2$ per nucleon with an average neutrino interaction energy of 1.3 GeV.

Neutrino- and antineutrino-oxygen neutral-current quasielasticlike interactions are measured at Super-Kamiokande using nuclear deexcitation $\gamma$ rays to identify signal-like interactions in data from a $14.94(16.35)\times {10}^{20}$ protons-on-target exposure of the T2K neutrino (antineutrino) beam. The measured flux-averaged cross sections on oxygen nuclei are $⟨{\sigma }_{\nu \text{−}\mathrm{NCQE}}⟩=1.70\pm 0.17(\mathrm{stat}.{)}_{-0.38}^{+0.51}(\mathrm{syst}.)\times {10}^{-38}{\mathrm{cm}}^2/\text{oxygen}$ with a flux-averaged energy of 0.82 GeV and $⟨{\sigma }_{\overline{\nu }\text{−}\mathrm{NCQE}}⟩=0.98\pm 0.16(\mathrm{stat}.{)}_{-0.19}^{+0.26}(\mathrm{syst}.)\times {10}^{-38}{\mathrm{cm}}^2/\text{oxygen}$ with a flux-averaged energy of 0.68 GeV, for neutrinos and antineutrinos, respectively. These results are the most precise to date, and the antineutrino result is the first cross section measurement of this channel. They are compared with various theoretical predictions. The impact on evaluation of backgrounds to searches for supernova relic neutrinos at present and future water Cherenkov detectors is also discussed.

We report measurements by the T2K experiment of the parameters ${\theta }_{23}$ and $\mathrm{\Delta }{m}_{32}^2$, which govern the disappearance of muon neutrinos and antineutrinos in the three-flavor PMNS neutrino oscillation model at T2K’s neutrino energy and propagation distance. Utilizing the ability of the experiment to run with either a mainly neutrino or a mainly antineutrino beam, muon-like events from each beam mode are used to measure these parameters separately for neutrino and antineutrino oscillations. Data taken from $1.49\times {10}^{21}$ protons on target (POT) in neutrino mode and $1.64\times {10}^{21}$ POT in antineutrino mode are used. The best-fit values obtained by T2K were ${\sin }^2({\theta }_{23})={0.51}_{-0.07}^{+0.06}({0.43}_{-0.05}^{+0.21})$ and $\mathrm{\Delta }{m}_{32}^2={2.47}_{-0.09}^{+0.08}({2.50}_{-0.13}^{+0.18})\times {10}^{-3}{\mathrm{eV}}^2/c^4$ for neutrinos (antineutrinos). No significant differences between the values of the parameters describing the disappearance of muon neutrinos and antineutrinos were observed. An analysis using an effective two-flavor neutrino oscillation model where the sine of the mixing angle is allowed to take nonphysical values larger than 1 is also performed to check the consistency of our data with the three-flavor model. Our data were found to be consistent with a physical value for the mixing angle.