| Abstract: |
An unresolved problem in the Standard Model is the observed presence of matter and lack of corresponding antimatter in the universe. To explain the matter-antimatter asymmetry, Sakharov suggested three conditions had to be met: that baryon number is violated, CP violation and that matter and antimatter are out of thermal equilibrium. A sufficient source of CP violation could be from new physics in the quark sector, or in the lepton sector within neutrino mixing. The conversion of muon neutrinos to electron neutrinos, nue appearance, is sensitive to CP violation between the light neutrinos, which can be related to CP violation of a hypothetical heavy neutrino in the early universe to meet Sakharov's conditions. However, nue appearance is also dependant on precision measurements of other mixing parameters, including Dm2(32), theta(23) and theta(13). The Tokai-To-Kamioka (T2K) long baseline neutrino experiment is designed to precisely measure muon neutrino disappearance (Dm2(32), theta(23)) and nue appearance. The experiment uses a beam of muon neutrinos generated at the J-PARC facility in Tokai-mura, Japan, which is sampled by two near detectors, ND280 and INGRID, before reaching the Super-Kamiokande detector, 295km away. Since the March 2011 earthquake, T2K has recovered, resumed and updated the nue appearance analysis with an increased data set corresponding to 3.01e20 protons on target (at 15.5 kW x 107 s). This seminar will highlight T2K's incredible recovery and analysis improvements, and discuss prospects for future neutrino-based searches for CP violation in the lepton sector. |
