Measurement of neutrino oscillations with the MINOS detectors in the NuMI beam

Phys Rev Lett. 2008 Sep 26;101(13):131802. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.131802. Epub 2008 Sep 26.

Abstract

This Letter reports new results from the MINOS experiment based on a two-year exposure to muon neutrinos from the Fermilab NuMI beam. Our data are consistent with quantum-mechanical oscillations of neutrino flavor with mass splitting |Deltam2| = (2.43+/-0.13) x 10(-3) eV2 (68% C.L.) and mixing angle sin2(2theta) > 0.90 (90% C.L.). Our data disfavor two alternative explanations for the disappearance of neutrinos in flight: namely, neutrino decays into lighter particles and quantum decoherence of neutrinos, at the 3.7 and 5.7 standard-deviation levels, respectively.