Neutrino induced events in the MINOS detectors

Document #:

MINOS-doc-4646-v1

Document type:

Thesis

Submitted by:

Phillip P Litchfield

Updated by:

Phillip P Litchfield

Document Created:

04 Jun 2008, 06:05

Contents Revised:

04 Jun 2008, 06:05

DB Info Revised:

28 Nov 2008, 09:37

Abstract:

The MINOS experiment is designed to study neutrino oscillations. It uses an accelerator generated beam of neutrinos and two detectors, the smaller at a distance of 1 km and the larger at 735 km. By comparing the spectrum and flavour composition of the beam at the two detectors precise determinations of the oscillation parameters are possible.

This thesis concentrates on the analysis of data from the larger Far Detector. By studying the spectrum of neutral current events it is possible to look for evidence of non-interacting `sterile' neutrinos. The thesis describes how events are selected for this analysis, and a method for discriminating between charged current and neutral current
events. The systematic uncertainties resulting from these cuts are evaluated. Several techniques for using Near Detector data to eliminate systematic uncertainties in the predicted Far Detector spectrum are compared.

An oscillation analysis, based on the first year of MINOS data, uses the selected events to make a measurement of f_s, the fraction of unseen neutrinos that are sterile. The measured value is f_s = 0.07^{+0.32} at 68% C.L., and is consistent with the standard three-neutrino picture, which has no sterile neutrino.

Files in Document:

• .pdf version (double sided, single spaced) (thesis_DS.pdf, 1.9 MB)
• .ps version (double sided, single spaced) (thesis_DS.ps, 3.5 MB)

Topics:

• Publications & Theses:Theses
• Analysis:Charged Current
• Analysis:Neutral Current
• Analysis:Far Detector

Authors:

• Phillip P Litchfield

Notes and Changes:

This is the double-sided form of the version submitted for my viva, (and passed, with minor corrections) I will update the document with the corrections once i have made them.