A Combined ν μ → ν e and ν ¯ μ → ν ¯ e Oscillation Analysis of the MiniBooNE Excesses
MiniBooNE Collaboration, A. A. Aguilar-Arevalo, B. C. Brown, L. Bugel, G. Cheng, E. D. Church, J. M. Conrad, R. Dharmapalan, Z. Djurcic, D. A. Finley, R. Ford, F. G. Garcia, G. T. Garvey, J. Grange, W. Huelsnitz, C. Ignarra, R. Imlay, R. A. Johnson, G. Karagiorgi, T. Katori, T. Kobilarcik, W. C. Louis, C. Mariani, W. Marsh, G. B. Mills, J. Mirabal, C. D. Moore, J. Mousseau, P. Nienaber, B. Osmanov, Z. Pavlovic, D. Perevalov, C. C. Polly, H. Ray, B. P. Roe, A. D. Russell, M. H. Shaevitz, J. Spitz, I. Stancu, R. Tayloe, R. G. Van de Water, D. H. White, D. A. Wickremasinghe, G. P. Zeller, E. D. Zimmerman
Abstract
The MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab reports results from an analysis of the combined
ν
e
and
ν
¯
e
appearance data from
6.46×
10
20
protons on target in neutrino mode and
11.27×
10
20
protons on target in antineutrino mode. A total excess of
240.3±34.5±52.6
events (
3.8σ
) is observed from combining the two data sets in the energy range
200<
E
QE
ν
<1250
MeV. In a combined fit for CP-conserving
ν
μ
→
ν
e
and
ν
¯
μ
→
ν
¯
e
oscillations via a two-neutrino model, the background-only fit has a
χ
2
-probability of 0.03% relative to the best oscillation fit. The data are consistent with neutrino oscillations in the
0.01<Δ
m
2
<1.0
eV
2
range and with the evidence for antineutrino oscillations from the Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector (LSND).