Search for Sterile Neutrinos with the MINOS Long-Baseline Experiment
Abstract
This thesis will present a search for sterile neutrinos using data taken with the MINOS experiment between 2005 and 2012. MINOS is a two-detector on-axis experiment based at Fermilab. The NuMI neutrino beam encounters the MINOS Near Detector 1km downstream of the neutrino-production target before traveling a further 734km through the Earth's crust, to reach the Far Detector located at the Soudan Underground Laboratory in Northern Minnesota. By searching for oscillations driven by a large mass splitting, MINOS is sensitive to the existence of sterile neutrinos through looking for any energy-dependent perturbations using a charged-current sample, as well as looking at any relative deficit in neutral current events between the Far and Near Detectors. This thesis will discuss the novel analysis that enabled a search for sterile neutrinos covering five orders of magnitude in the mass splitting and setting a limit in previously unexplored regions of the parameter space $$\left\{\Delta m^{2}_{41},\sin^2\theta_{24}\right\}$$, where a 3+1-flavour phenomenological model was used to extract parameter limits. The results presented in this thesis are sensitive to the sterile neutrino parameter space suggested by the LSND and MiniBooNE experiments.
- Authors:
-
- Univ. of Manchester (United Kingdom)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP) (SC-25)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1334262
- Report Number(s):
- FERMILAB-THESIS-2016-25
1501369
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-07CH11359
- Resource Type:
- Thesis/Dissertation
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
Citation Formats
Timmons, Ashley Michael. Search for Sterile Neutrinos with the MINOS Long-Baseline Experiment. United States: N. p., 2016.
Web. doi:10.2172/1334262.
Timmons, Ashley Michael. Search for Sterile Neutrinos with the MINOS Long-Baseline Experiment. United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/1334262
Timmons, Ashley Michael. Fri .
"Search for Sterile Neutrinos with the MINOS Long-Baseline Experiment". United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/1334262. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1334262.
@article{osti_1334262,
title = {Search for Sterile Neutrinos with the MINOS Long-Baseline Experiment},
author = {Timmons, Ashley Michael},
abstractNote = {This thesis will present a search for sterile neutrinos using data taken with the MINOS experiment between 2005 and 2012. MINOS is a two-detector on-axis experiment based at Fermilab. The NuMI neutrino beam encounters the MINOS Near Detector 1km downstream of the neutrino-production target before traveling a further 734km through the Earth's crust, to reach the Far Detector located at the Soudan Underground Laboratory in Northern Minnesota. By searching for oscillations driven by a large mass splitting, MINOS is sensitive to the existence of sterile neutrinos through looking for any energy-dependent perturbations using a charged-current sample, as well as looking at any relative deficit in neutral current events between the Far and Near Detectors. This thesis will discuss the novel analysis that enabled a search for sterile neutrinos covering five orders of magnitude in the mass splitting and setting a limit in previously unexplored regions of the parameter space $\left\{\Delta m^{2}_{41},\sin^2\theta_{24}\right\}$, where a 3+1-flavour phenomenological model was used to extract parameter limits. The results presented in this thesis are sensitive to the sterile neutrino parameter space suggested by the LSND and MiniBooNE experiments.},
doi = {10.2172/1334262},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1334262},
journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {2016},
month = {1}
}