Evidence for Normal Neutrino Ordering with Combined Atmospheric Neutrino Experiments
arXiv: 2610.12208v1 · Summary page
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Atmospheric neutrinos weigh in on the mass ordering
Neutrinos change identity as they travel, but the ordering of their masses remains unsettled. A combined analysis of publicly available atmospheric-neutrino data from Super-Kamiokande, IceCube-DeepCore and KM3NeT/ORCA now favors the normal ordering, excluding the inverted ordering at 99.95% confidence level after calibration with pseudoexperiments. The analysis also constrains the parameters governing atmospheric oscillations with precision competitive with accelerator measurements, and independently constrains the phase associated with possible differences between neutrino and antineutrino oscillations.
The methodological hinge is the treatment of uncertainty: the fit treats shared systematic uncertainties as fully correlated across experiments while keeping detector-response uncertainties independent. Combining detectors with different responses lets naturally produced neutrinos provide a complementary view of a question central to particle physics. This preprint strengthens the evidence for normal ordering rather than settling it.
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