OPERA ― 20 Years Later

Tau neutrino detection is an extremely complicated task. For the first time, this was done only in 2001 in the DONuT experiment (FNAL, the US) with the ECC (Emulsion Cloud Chamber), a special emulsion detector. The search for tau neutrinos in the OPERA experiment was an even more complicated task ― neutrinos were to be detected at a significant distance from the source, there where their flux is substantially weakened.

In the early 2000s, the manufacture of a hybrid facility with a target (ECC) and electronic detectors got started (Fig. 1). The facility had unprecedented characteristics. Weighing about 1200 t, it reached an exceptionally high spatial and angular resolution, about 1 µm and 0.5 mrad, respectively. This gave the possibility of efficiently identifying charged-current tau neutrino interactions, i. e., directly detecting the tau lepton and its decay (see below one of the reconstructed events).

Figure 1. OPERA detector in Gran Sasso, the underground laboratory of INFN

The major part of data was gathered from 2008 to 2012. In total, 20 000 neutrino interactions were detected in the facility. Using special selection criteria and advanced analysis methods, including neural networks, candidate tau neutrino interactions were selected. In view of two expected background events, 10 candidate events for tau neutrino interactions were found using a multivariant analysis. The confidence level of the detection exceeded 6 standard deviations. Thus, muon-to-tau neutrino oscillations were discovered, and the main objective of the experiment successfully accomplished. This result became a significant contribution to other investigations of neutrino oscillations in the disappearance mode, which was highlighted in the Nobel Prize report by T. Kajita in 2015.

The series of the papers submitted to the competition included the studies performed in different years, including the latest papers devoted to the results obtained with the direct participation of the JINR group.

The JINR group took an active part in developing the Target Tracker (TT), the main electronic detector. Namely, the group manufactured scintillation strips, assembled and calibrated modules in France, installed the detector in Gran Sasso. Above 20 specialists from DLNP and other JINR laboratories were involved in these activities. The TT overall area is 6 200 m² (62 488 PMT channels). After launching the detector, the in-house TT data processing software package to search for event vertices in the OPERA detector was developed at JINR. This software turned out to be more efficient that the basic one, which allowed performing the analysis significantly faster. And its event display was much more informative and functional. The JINR group was in charge of the TT data analysis and search for neutrino event vertices for over almost the entire duration of the experiment.

Figure 2. One of the tau neutrino interaction events detected with the ECC in the OPERA experiment

The OPERA detector could also efficiently register electron neutrinos. However, νμ ― νе oscillations in the appearance mode in the kinematic region of the experiment were not observed. The number of electron neutrino interactions corresponded to the level of their content in the CNGS beam. Nevertheless, the electron neutrino event analysis allowed setting constraints on the sterile neutrino existence.

In 2011, the Lyon group estimated time of flight of the neutrinos travelling from CERN to Gran Sasso. Due to a number of technical inaccuracies, the result had a large systematic error, which led to the paradoxical result ― the neutrino flies faster than light! A bit later, other OPERA groups found out the main error source ― it was a defect of the electronics. At the same time, the JINR group proposed a more accurate way to analyse data for detecting neutrino interaction time in the TT. It eliminated another considerable error in the result obtained by the French group. This method was used in getting the final results of neutrino speed measurements published in 2012.

Figure 3. Advances in developing tools for automated track data readout in nuclear emulsion (left). Modern automated scanning stations at JINR (right)

Precision spatial resolution of emulsion detectors allows analyzing the detected events in a very clear and intuitive way (Figure 2). Data on the most interesting events and tools for their analysis were uploaded within the Open Data CERN project (http://opendata.cern.ch) so that all those interested (including professors and students) could process information and get a result. The latest OPERA paper published in 2021 was devoted to this project implemented largely due to the JINR group and is part of the paper series submitted to the competition.

JINR group members reported the OPERA results at international conferences 15 times. Yu. A. Gornushkin, the head of the JINR group of the OPERA experiment, is a deputy spokesperson of the collaboration since 2012.

At present, OPERA participants successfully go on studying neutrinos within other projects of the JINR Neutrino Programme ― JUNO, NOvA, NA65. The latter uses the advanced technology of emulsion detectors developed in the OPERA experiment. The speed of automated track data readout in emulsion detectors increased thousand times since 1998, the moment when the project was proposed! (Fig. 3) Studying properties of tau neutrinos and mechanisms of their production in proton―matter interactions is going on in the accelerator experiment NA65.

The First JINR Prize is a high appreciation of the 20-year-long activity of the JINR group that has culminated in the discovery of muon-to-tau neutrino transformation!

Head of the Sector of Experimental Neutrino Physics,
of the DLNP Experimental Department of Particle Physics,
Candidate of Physics and Mathematics

Yury Alekseevich Gornushkin

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