A Redetermination of the Neutrino Mass-Squared Difference in Tri-Maximal Mixing with Terrestrial Matter Effects

Abstract

We re-fit for the neutrino mass-squared difference $\Delta m^2$ in the threefold maximal (ie. tri-maximal) mixing scenario using recent CHOOZ and SUPER-K data, taking account of matter effects in the Earth. While matter effects have little influence on reactor experiments and proposed long-baseline accelerator experiments with $L \simlt 1000 km$, they are highly significant for atmospheric experiments, suppressing naturally $\nu_e$ mixing and enhancing $\nu_{\mu} - \nu_{\tau}$ mixing, so as to effectively remove the experimental distinction between threefold maximal and twofold maximal $\nu_{\mu}-\nu_{\tau}$ mixing. Threefold maximal mixing is fully consistent with the CHOOZ and SUPER-K data and the best-fit value for the neutrino mass-squared difference is $\Delta m^2 = (0.98 \pm^{0.30}_{0.23}) \times 10^{-3} eV^2$.