Dr William Parker

Abstract:

We report the measurements of single and double differential cross section of muon neutrino charged-current interactions on carbon with a single positively charged pion in the final state at the T2K off-axis near detector using $5.56\times10^{20}$ protons on target. The analysis uses data control samples for the background subtraction and the cross section signal, defined as a single negatively charged muon and a single positively charged pion exiting from the target nucleus, is extracted using an unfolding method. The model dependent cross section, integrated over the T2K off-axis neutrino beam spectrum peaking at $0.6$~GeV, is measured to be $\sigma = (11.76 \pm 0.44 \text{(stat)} \pm 2.39 \text{(syst)}) \times 10^{-40} \text{cm}^2$~$\text{nucleon}^{-1}$. Various differential cross sections are measured, including the first measurement of the Adler angles for single charged pion production in neutrino interactions with heavy nuclei target.

Abstract:

Neutrino- and antineutrino-oxygen neutral-current quasielasticlike interactions are measured at SuperKamiokande using nuclear deexcitation γ rays to identify signal-like interactions in data from a 14.94ð16.35Þ × 1020 protons-on-target exposure of the T2K neutrino (antineutrino) beam. The measured flux-averaged cross sections on oxygen nuclei are hσν-NCQEi ¼ 1.70 0.17ðstat:Þ þ0.51 −0.38 ðsyst:Þ × 10−38 cm2=oxygen with a fluxaveraged energy of 0.82 GeV and hσν¯-NCQEi ¼ 0.98 0.16ðstat:Þ þ0.26 −0.19 ðsyst:Þ × 10−38 cm2=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.

Abstract:

This paper reports on the search for heavy neutrinos with masses in the range $140 < M_N < 493$ MeV/c$^2$ using the off-axis near detector ND280 of the T2K experiment. These particles can be produced from kaon decays in the standard neutrino beam and then subsequently decay in ND280. The decay modes under consideration are $N \to \ell^{\pm}_{\alpha} \pi^{\mp}$ and $N \to \ell^+_{\alpha} \ell^-_{\beta} \nu (\bar\nu)$ ($\alpha,\beta=e,\mu$). A search for such events has been made using the Time Projection Chambers of ND280, where the background has been reduced to less than two events in the current dataset in all channels. No excess has been observed in the signal region. A combined Bayesian statistical approach has been applied to extract upper limits on the mixing elements of heavy neutrinos to electron-, muon- and tau- flavoured currents ($U_e^2$, $U_{\mu}^2$, $U_{\tau}^2$) as a function of the heavy neutrino mass, e.g. $U_e^2 < 10^{-9}$ at $90\%$ C.L. for a mass of $390$ MeV/c$^2$. These constraints are competitive with previous experiments.

Abstract:

In this document, technical details of the upgrade plan of the J-PARC neutrino beamline for the extension of the T2K experiment are described. T2K has proposed to accumulate data corresponding to $2\times{}10^{22}$ protons-on-target in the next decade, aiming at an initial observation of CP violation with $3\sigma$ or higher significance in the case of maximal CP violation. Methods to increase the neutrino beam intensity, which are necessary to achieve the proposed data increase, are described.

Abstract:

All rights reserved. Neutrino neutral-current (NC) induced single photon production is a subleading order process for accelerator-based neutrino beam experiments including T2K. It is, however, an important process to understand because it is a background for electron (anti)neutrino appearance oscillation experiments. Here, we performed the first search of this process below 1 GeV using the finegrained detector at the T2K ND280 off-axis near detector. By reconstructing single photon kinematics from electron positron pairs, we achieved 95% pure gamma ray sample from 5.738 1020 protons-on-targets neutrino mode data. We do not find positive evidence of NC induced single photon production in this sample. We set the model-dependent upper limit on the cross-section for this process, at 0.114 10-38 cm2 (90% C.L.) per nucleon, using the J-PARC off-axis neutrino beam with an average energy of .En. ~ 0.6 GeV. This is the first limit on this process below 1.GeV which is important for current and future oscillation experiments looking for electron neutrino appearance oscillation signals.