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arXiv · 2606.11358

Correlated Matter Induced Biases in Long-Baseline Neutrino Oscillation Measurements

Abstract

We demonstrate that treating Earth matter effects via a constant-density approximation introduces a fundamental systematic error in long-baseline neutrino oscillation analyses. Using exact numerical propagation through realistic PREM profiles, we show that matter-profile mismodeling does not merely affect the $ν_μ\rightarrowν_{e}$ appearance probability, but generates correlated biases across the $ν_μ\rightarrowν_τ$ and $ν_μ\rightarrowν_μ$ channels as dictated by PMNS unitarity. Our stochastic analysis reveals that the $ν_μ\rightarrowν_τ$ channel is the most volatile carrier of the geophysical systematic. Across varying correlation lengths at baselines like $5000$ km and $7000$ km, the $τ$-appearance channel consistently carries a larger mean bias and variance than the standard $ν_μ\rightarrowν_{e}$ appearance channel. These findings demonstrate that spatially resolved density treatments are a mathematical necessity for the analysis frameworks of future precision neutrino facilities.

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Tia Pandit, Bipin Singh Koranga. 2026-06-11. Correlated Matter Induced Biases in Long-Baseline Neutrino Oscillation Measurements. https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.11358

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