skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Using Quasi-Elastic Events to Measure Neutrino Oscillations with MINOS Detectors in the NuMI Neutrino Beam

Thesis/Dissertation ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1013142· OSTI ID:1013142
 [1]
  1. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States)

MINOS (Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search) experiment has been designed to search for a change in the avor composition of a beam of muon neutrinos as they travel between the Near Detector at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the Far Detector in the Soudan mine in Minnesota, 735 km from the target. The MINOS oscillation analysis is mainly performed with the charged current (CC) events and sensitive to constrain high- Δm2 values. However, the quasi-elastic (QEL) charged current interaction is dominant in the energy region important to access low- m2 values. For further improvement, the QEL oscillation analysis is performed in this dissertation. A data sample based on a total of 2.50 x 1020 POT is used for this analysis. In summary, 55 QEL-like events are observed at the Far detector while 87.06 ± 13.17 (syst:) events are expected with null oscillation hypothesis. These data are consistent with disappearance via oscillation with m2 = 2:10 0.37 (stat:) ± 0.24 (syst:) eV2 and the maximal mixing angle.

Research Organization:
Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
AC02-07CH11359; FG02-95ER40917
OSTI ID:
1013142
Report Number(s):
FERMILAB-THESIS-2010-63; TRN: US1102458
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English