Measurement of the Velocity of Neutrinos from the CNGS Beam with the Large Volume Detector

We report the measurement of the time of flight of ∼17  GeV ν[subscript μ] on the CNGS baseline (732 km) with the Large Volume Detector (LVD) at the Gran Sasso Laboratory. The CERN-SPS accelerator has been operated from May 10th to May 24th 2012, with a tightly bunched-beam structure to allow the ve...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Pless, Irwin A.
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: American Physical Society 2012
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/74076
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4937-6514
Description
Summary:We report the measurement of the time of flight of ∼17  GeV ν[subscript μ] on the CNGS baseline (732 km) with the Large Volume Detector (LVD) at the Gran Sasso Laboratory. The CERN-SPS accelerator has been operated from May 10th to May 24th 2012, with a tightly bunched-beam structure to allow the velocity of neutrinos to be accurately measured on an event-by-event basis. LVD has detected 48 neutrino events, associated with the beam, with a high absolute time accuracy. These events allow us to establish the following limit on the difference between the neutrino speed and the light velocity: -3.8×10[superscript -6]<(vν-c)/c<3.1×10[superscript -6] (at 99% C.L.). This value is an order of magnitude lower than previous direct measurements.