VOLUME
81, NUMBER 8 PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 24A
UGUST
1998
s; n
m
yn
e
d of the flux of n
m
1 n
m
to the flux of n
e
1 n
e
of about 2. The n
m
yn
e
ratio has been calculated in detail
with an uncertainty of less than 5% over a broad range of
energies from 0.1 to 10 GeV [1,2].
The n
m
yn
e
flux ratio is measured in deep underground
experiments by observing final state leptons produced via
charged-current interactions of neutrinos on nuclei, n1
N!l1X. The flavor of the final state lepton is used to
identify the flavor of the incoming neutrino.
The measurements are reported as R ;smyed
DATA
y
smyed
MC
, where m and e are the number of muon-
like sm-liked and electronlike se-liked events observed
in the detector for both data and Monte Carlo simu-
lations. This ratio largely cancels experimental and theo-
retical uncertainties, especially the uncertainty in the
absolute flux. R 1 is expected if the physics in the
Monte Carlo simulation accurately models the data.
Measurements of significantly small values of R have
been reported by the deep underground water Cherenkov
detectors Kamiokande [3,4], IMB [5], and recently by
Super-Kamiokande [6,7]. Although measurements of R
by early iron-calorimeter experiments Fréjus [8] and NU-
SEX [9] with smaller data samples were consistent with
expectations, the Soudan-2 iron-calorimeter experiment
has reported observation of a small value of R [10].
Neutrino oscillations have been suggested to explain
measurements of small values of R. For a two-neutrino
oscillation hypothesis, the probability for a neutrino pro-
duced in flavor state a to be observed in flavor state b after
traveling a distance L through a vacuum is
P
a!b
sin
2
2u sin
2
µ
1.27Dm
2
seV
2
dLskmd
E
n
sGeVd
∂
, (1)
where E
n
is the neutrino energy, u is the mixing angle
between the flavor eigenstates and the mass eigenstates,
and Dm
2
is the mass squared difference of the neutrino
mass eigenstates. For detectors near the surface of the
Earth, the neutrino flight distance, and thus the oscilla-
tion probability, is a function of the zenith angle of the
neutrino direction. Vertically downward-going neutrinos
travel about 15 km, while vertically upward-going neutri-
nos travel about 13 000 km before interacting in the detec-
tor. The broad energy spectrum and this range of neutrino
flight distances make measurements of atmospheric neu-
trinos sensitive to neutrino oscillations with Dm
2
down to
10
24
eV
2
. The zenith angle dependence of R measured
by the Kamiokande experiment at high energies has been
cited as evidence for neutrino oscillations [4].
We present our analysis of 33.0 kton yr (535 days) of
atmospheric neutrino data from Super-Kamiokande. In
addition to measurements of small values of R both above
and below ,1 GeV, we observed a significant zenith angle
dependent deficit of m-like events. While no combination
of known uncertainties in the experimental measurement
or predictions of atmospheric neutrino fluxes is able to
explain our data, a two-neutrino oscillation model of
n
m
$ n
x
, where n
x
may be n
t
or a new, noninteracting
“sterile” neutrino, is consistent with the observed flavor
ratios and zenith angle distributions over the entire energy
region.
Super-Kamiokande is a 50 kton water Cherenkov detec-
tor instrumented with 11146 photomultiplier tubes (PMTs)
facing an inner 22.5 kton fiducial volume of ultrapure wa-
ter. Interaction kinematics are reconstructed using the time
and charge of each PMT signal. The inner volume is sur-
rounded by a ,2mthick outer detector instrumented with
1885 outward-facing PMTs. The outer detector is used to
veto entering particles and to tag exiting tracks.
Super-Kamiokande has collected a total of 4353 fully
contained (FC) events and 301 partially contained (PC)
events in a 33.0 kton yr exposure. FC events deposit all
of their Cherenkov light in the inner detector while PC
events have exiting tracks which deposit some Cherenkov
light in the outer detector. For this analysis, the neutrino
interaction vertex was required to have been reconstructed
within the 22.5 kton fiducial volume, defined to be .2m
from the PMT wall.
FC events were separated into those with a single visible
Cherenkov ring and those with multiple Cherenkov rings.
For the analysis of FC events, only single-ring events were
used. Single-ring events were identified as c-like or m-like
based on a likelihood analysis of light detected around
the Cherenkov cone. The FC events were separated into
“sub-GEV” sE
vis
, 1330 MeVd and “multi-GeV” sE
vis
.
1330 MeVd samples, where E
vis
is defined to be the energy
of an electron that would produce the observed amount
of Cherenkov light. E
vis
1330 MeV corresponds to
p
m
, 1400 MeVyc.
In a full-detector Monte Carlo simulation, 88% (96%) of
the sub-GeV e-like sm-liked events were n
e
sn
m
d charged-
current interactions and 84% (99%) of the multi-GeV
e-like sm-liked events were n
e
sn
m
d charged-current (CC)
interactions. PC events were estimated to be 98% n
m
charged-current interactions; hence, all PC events were
classified as m-like, and no single-ring requirement was
made. Table I summarizes the number of observed events
for both data and Monte Carlo as well as the R values for
the sub-GeV and multi-GeV samples. Further details of
the detector, data selection, and event reconstruction used
in this analysis are given elsewhere [6,7].
We have measured significantly small values of R
in both the sub-GeV and multi-GeV samples. Several
sources of systematic uncertainties in these measurements
have been considered. Cosmic ray induced interactions in
the rock surrounding the detector have been suggested as a
source of e-like contamination from neutrons, which could
produce small R values [11], but these backgrounds have
been shown to be insignificant for large water Cherenkov
detectors [12]. In particular, Super-Kamiokande has 4.7 m
of water surrounding the fiducial volume; this distance
corresponds to roughly 5 hadronic interaction lengths
and 13 radiation lengths. Distributions of event vertices
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