Electron Neutrino Appearance in the MINOS Experiment

Thesis/Dissertation · Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1156435· OSTI ID:1156435

Orchanian, Mhair-armen Hagop ^[1]

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1. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)

This thesis describes a search for v_e appearance in the two-detector long-baseline MINOS neutrino experiment at Fermilab, based on a data set representing an exposure of 8.2×10²⁰ protons on the NuMI target. The analysis detailed herein represents an increase in sensitivity to the θ₁₃ mixing angle of approximately 25% over previous analyses, due to improvements in the event discriminant and fitting technique. Based on our observation, we constrain the value of θ₁₃ further, finding 2 sin²θ ₂₃ sin²θ ₁₃< 0.12(0.20) at the 90% confidence level for δ_CP = 0 and the normal (inverted) neutrino mass hierarchy. The best-fit value is 2 sin²θ ₂₃ sin²θ ₁₃ = 0.041^+0.047 _-0.031(0.079^+0.071 _-0.053) under the same assumptions. We exclude the θ ₁₃ = 0 hypothesis at the 89% confidence level.

• Research Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-07CH11359
• OSTI ID: 1156435
• Report Number(s): FERMILAB-THESIS-2012-10
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS