Evidence of electron neutrino appearance in a muon neutrino beam

The T2K Collaboration reports evidence for electron neutrino appearance at the atmospheric mass splitting, |Δm₃₂²|≈2.4×10^-3 eV². An excess of electron neutrino interactions over background is observed from a muon neutrino beam with a peak energy of 0.6 GeV at the Super-Kamiokande (SK) detector 295 km from the beam's origin. Signal and background predictions are constrained by data from near detectors located 280 m from the neutrino production target. We observe 11 electron neutrino candidate events at the SK detector when a background of 3.3±0.4(syst) events is expected. The background-only hypothesis is rejected with a p value of 0.0009 (3.1σ), and a fit assuming ν_μ→νₑ oscillations with sin²2θ₂₃=1, δCP=0 and |Δm₃₂²|=2.4×10^-3 eV² yields sin²2θ₁₃=0.088_-0.039+0.049(stat+syst).