Upper bound on neutrino mass based on T2K neutrino timing measurements

Journal article

The Tokai to Kamioka (T2K) long-baseline neutrino experiment consists of a muon neutrino beam, produced at the J-PARC accelerator, a near detector complex and a large 295-km-distant far detector. The present work utilizes the T2K event timing measurements at the near and far detectors to study neutrino time of flight as a function of derived neutrino energy. Under the assumption of a relativistic relation between energy and time of flight, constraints on the neutrino rest mass can be derived. The sub-GeV neutrino beam in conjunction with timing precision of order tens of ns provide sensitivity to neutrino mass in the few MeV/c2 range. We study the distribution of relative arrival times of muon and electron neutrino candidate events at the T2K far detector as a function of neutrino energy. The 90% C.L. upper limit on the mixture of neutrino mass eigenstates represented in the data sample is found to be m2ν<5.6 MeV2/c4.

Authors: Abe, K; Adam, J; Aihara, H; Akiri, T; Andreopoulos, C

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Journal: Physical Review D
• Volume: 93
• Issue: 1
• Pages: ARTN 012006
• Publication date: 2016-01-27
• DOI: 10.1103/physrevd.93.012006
• EISSN: 2470-0029
• ISSN: 2470-0010
• Language: English
• Keywords: SBTMR