Atmospheric neutrino oscillations and the search for ντ appearance at Super-Kamiokande

In contrast to the predictions of the Standard Model of particle physics, experimental data now indicate that neutrinos are massive and undergo flavor oscillations. Indeed, observations of atmospheric neutrinos have confirmed that the disappearance of high-energy muon-like events is well described by the conversion of ν μ into ν τ . Though the primary atmospheric neutrino flux at these energies is composed almost exclusively of ν e and ν μ , this transition implies that it is also possible to observe ν τ -induced events. Recent results from the Super-Kamiokande ν μ disappearance analysis as well the search for the subsequent appearance of ν τ events in the data are presented.