Accelerator Neutrinos

Abstract:

The current laws of physics do not explain the observed imbalance of matter and antimatter in the universe. Sakharov proposed that an explanation would require the violation of CP symmetry between matter and antimatter. The only CP violation observed so far is in the weak interactions of quarks, and it is too small to explain the matter-antimatter imbalance of the universe. It has been shown that CP violation in the lepton sector could generate the matter-antimatter disparity through the process called leptogenesis. The quantum mixing of neutrinos, the neutral leptons in the Standard Model, provides a potential source of CP violation through a complex phase dCP, which may have consequences for theoretical models of leptogenesis. This CP violation can be measured in muon neutrino to electron neutrino oscillations and the corresponding antineutrino oscillations, which are experimentally accessible with accelerator-produced beams as established by the T2K experiment. Until now, the value of dCP has not been significantly constrained by neutrino oscillation experiments. Here the T2K collaboration reports a measurement that favors large enhancement of the neutrino oscillation probability, excluding values of dCP which result in a large enhancement of the observed anti-neutrino oscillation probability at three standard deviations (3 sigma). The 3 sigma confidence level interval for dCP, which is cyclic and repeats every 2pi, is [-3.41,-0.03] for the so-called normal mass ordering, and [-2.54,-0.32] for the inverted mass ordering. Our results show an indication of CP violation in the lepton sector. Herein we establish methods for sensitive searches for matter-antimatter asymmetry in neutrino oscillations using accelerator-produced neutrino beams. Future measurements with larger data samples will determine whether the leptonic CP violation is larger than the quark sector CP violation.

Abstract:

We present a new measurement of the electron neutrino charged current cross section on argon without pions in the final state. This measurement uses the full MicroBooNE booster neutrino beam dataset of 1.3 × 10 21 protons on target collected at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Events are considered both with and without protons above the kinetic energy visibility threshold. Differential cross sections are extracted in proton and electron kinematics, including energy and angle relative to the neutrino beam direction. The relationship between the hadronic and leptonic systems is explored through the angle between the proton and electron directions. The resulting cross sections are compared to a variety of available generator predictions using different models of neutrino interactions. We find good agreement with most models in lepton kinematics and some discrepancies in the hadronic system modeling, particularly in proton angle.

Abstract:

A search is presented for emerging jets using 140fb-1$$140~\textrm{fb}^{-1}$$ of proton–proton collision data at s=13TeV$$\sqrt{s} = 13~\textrm{TeV}$$, collected by the ATLAS experiment between 2015 and 2018. The search looks for the existence of a dark sector with symmetries similar to those in quantum chromodynamics. This dark sector is populated with dark quarks, which undergo showering similar to quarks in the Standard Model, leading to a high multiplicity of long-lived dark hadrons within a dark jet. These dark hadrons subsequently decay to Standard Model particles via a new heavy scalar mediating particle ϕ$$\phi $$. This results in jets which contain multiple displaced vertices, known as emerging jets. This analysis targets four-jet topologies, with two emerging jets and two Standard Model jets, resulting from the decay of pair-produced scalar mediators. No significant excess above the Standard Model background is observed. For dark pion proper decay lengths of 20mm$$20~\textrm{mm}$$, mediator masses are excluded between 1 and 2TeV$$2~\textrm{TeV}$$ assuming a dark pion mass of 20GeV$$20~\textrm{GeV}$$.

Abstract:

Events with t-channel single top quarks are used to probe effective field theory operators in s=13$$ \sqrt{s}=13 $$ TeV proton–proton collision data corresponding to 140 fb−1 recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. To extract a maximum amount of information from these events, the joint fourfold probability distribution for four kinematic angles is simultaneously analysed. A method leveraging Fourier techniques to handle the challenges arising from this approach is employed. The relevant effective field theory operators are those sensitive to top-quark decay and t-channel production vertices. Their Wilson coefficients are tightly constrained, with results compatible with Standard Model predictions.

Abstract:

A combination of measurements of the $CP$ properties of Higgs boson interactions with electroweak gauge bosons is presented, using $140{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$ of proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13\mathrm{TeV}$ recorded by the ATLAS detector. Results from vector boson fusion $H\to \tau \tau /W{W}^{*}/\gamma \gamma$ , inclusive $H\to Z{Z}^{*}$ , and $WH,H\to b\overline{b}$ channels are combined. No evidence of $CP$ violation is observed, and constrains on the $CP$ -violating operators in the Standard Model effective field theory framework (SMEFT) are set in the Warsaw basis. The results from the combination improve by over 40% on previous individual limits on $c_{H\tilde{W}}$ and, for the first time, simultaneous constraints on three coefficients $c_{H\tilde{W}}$ , $c_{H\tilde{B}}$ , and $c_{H\tilde{W}B}$ are set. These limits are the most stringent constraints to date on the relevant Wilson coefficients in the SMEFT framework with minimum model dependence.