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Updated MiniBooNE neutrino oscillation results with increased data and new background studies

A. A. Aguilar-Arevalo14, B. C. Brown5, J. M. Conrad13, R. Dharmapalan1,7, A. Diaz13, Z. Djurcic2, D. A. Finley5, R. Ford5, G. T. Garvey10 et al. (MiniBooNE Collaboration)

G. T. Garvey10, S. Gollapinni10, A. Hourlier13, E.-C. Huang10, N. W. Kamp13, G. Karagiorgi4, T. Katori12, T. Kobilarcik5, K. Lin4,10, W. C. Louis10, C. Mariani17, W. Marsh5, G. B. Mills10,*, J. Mirabal-Martinez10, C. D. Moore5, R. H. Nelson3,†, J. Nowak9, I. Parmaksiz16, Z. Pavlovic5, H. Ray6, B. P. Roe15, A. D. Russell5, A. Schneider13, M. H. Shaevitz4, H. Siegel4, J. Spitz15, I. Stancu1, R. Tayloe8, R. T. Thornton10, M. Tzanov3,11, R. G. Van de Water10, D. H. White10,*, and E. D. Zimmerman3 (MiniBooNE Collaboration)

  • 1University of Alabama; Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487, USA
  • 2Argonne National Laboratory; Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA
  • 3University of Colorado; Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA
  • 4Columbia University; New York, New York 10027, USA
  • 5Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Batavia, Illinois 60510, USA
  • 6University of Florida; Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA
  • 7University of Hawaii, Manoa; Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA
  • 8Indiana University; Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA
  • 9Lancaster University; Lancaster LA1 4YB, United Kingdom
  • 10Los Alamos National Laboratory; Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA
  • 11Louisiana State University; Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803, USA
  • 12King’s College London; London WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom
  • 13Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
  • 14Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares; Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; CDMX 04510, México
  • 15University of Michigan; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA
  • 16University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas 76019
  • 17Center for Neutrino Physics; Virginia Tech; Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA

  • *Deceased.
  • †Present address: The Aerospace Corporation, Los Angeles, California 90009, USA.
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Phys. Rev. D 103, 052002 – Published 8 March, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.103.052002

Abstract

The MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab reports a total excess of 638.0±52.1(stat.)±122.2(syst.) electronlike events from a data sample corresponding to 18.75×1020 protons-on-target in neutrino mode, which is a 46% increase in the data sample with respect to previously published results and 11.27×1020 protons-on-target in antineutrino mode. The overall significance of the excess, 4.8σ, is limited by systematic uncertainties, assumed to be Gaussian, as the statistical significance of the excess is 12.2σ. The additional statistics allow several studies to address questions on the source of the excess. First, we provide two-dimensional plots in visible energy and the cosine of the angle of the outgoing lepton, which can provide valuable input to models for the event excess. Second, we test whether the excess may arise from photons that enter the detector from external events or photons exiting the detector from π0 decays in two model independent ways. Beam timing information shows that almost all of the excess is in time with neutrinos that interact in the detector. The radius distribution shows that the excess is distributed throughout the volume, while tighter cuts on the fiducial volume increase the significance of the excess. The data likelihood ratio disfavors models that explain the event excess due to entering or exiting photons.

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Phys. Rev. D 103, 052002– Published 8 March, 2021
  • Received 13 November 2020
  • Accepted 22 February 2021
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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