Production of neutrinos and neutrino-like particles in proton-nucleus interactions

Thesis/Dissertation · Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1979

OSTI ID:5285867

Dishaw, J P

An experimental search was performed to look for the direct production of neutrinos or neutrino-like particles, i.e., neutral particles which interact weakly with hadrons, in proton-nucleus interactions at 400 GeV incident proton energy. Possible sources of such particles include the semi-leptonic decay of new heavy particles such as charm, and the direct production of a light neutral Higgs particle such as the axion. The production of these particles has been inferred in this experiment by energy nonconservation in the collision of a proton with an iron nucleus. The total visible energy of the interaction was measured using a sampling ionization calorimeter. The calorimeter was calibrated with muons. This calibration was adjusted slightly by requiring consistency in the calorimeter shower profile for primary interactions beginning at various depths in the calorimeter. Fluctuations in the electromagnetic and hadronic components were reduced using a weighted measurement algorithm. After correcting for beam intensity effects and cutting the data to eliminate systematic effects in the measurement, the final resolution of the calorimeter was 3.51% and increased with decreasing incident beam energy with a square root dependence on the beam energy. Energy nonconservation in the data is manifest as a nonGaussian distribution on the low side of the calorimeter measured energy. Model calculations yield the fraction of events expected in this nonGaussian behavior for the various sources of neutrinos or neutrino-like particles. A maximum likelihood fit to the data with the theoretical fraction of events expected yields the 95% confidence level production cross section upper limit values. The upper limits for general production of neutrino-like particles for various parameterizations of the production cross section are presented.

• OSTI ID: 5285867
• Resource Relation: Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
IRON
PROTON REACTIONS
NEUTRINOS
PARTICLE PRODUCTION
AXIONS
CHARM PARTICLES
CROSS SECTIONS
GEV RANGE 100-1000
HIGGS BOSONS
BARYON REACTIONS
BOSONS
CHARGED-PARTICLE REACTIONS
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
ELEMENTS
ENERGY RANGE
FERMIONS
GEV RANGE
GOLDSTONE BOSONS
HADRON REACTIONS
INTERMEDIATE BOSONS
LEPTONS
MASSLESS PARTICLES
METALS
NUCLEAR REACTIONS
NUCLEON REACTIONS
POSTULATED PARTICLES
TRANSITION ELEMENTS
645102* - High Energy Physics- Particle Interactions & Properties-Experimental- Weak Interactions & Properties