Dr. Dung Phan, Univ. of Texas at Austin, US

Searching for neutron-antineutron oscillation is an active research direction that promises immense values for field of particle physics and cosmology. An experi- mental observation of the phenomenon offers the possibility of new physics associ- ated with anomalous B and/or B − L violating processes. A data-driven trigger that allows NOvA - a long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment - to collect the neutron-antineutron oscillation candidates will be described in detail. An analysis approach in which the real data is partially unblinded to assist the development and evaluation of the event selection and background normalization is chosen for this search. Due to the fact that this is an ongoing work and important aspects of the analysis has not been all finalized, we conclude with a sensitivity study. By analyzing the data from 4 months of the NOvA’s Far Detector exposure, a 90% C.L. sensitivity limit of 4 × 10³⁰ years was placed on the oscillation life-time of bound neutrons from the ¹²C targets. This is equivalent to a sensitivity of 0.57 × 10⁸ s placed on the oscillation life-time of free neutrons.
Slides