Search for Sterile Neutrinos with the MINOS Long-Baseline Experiment

This thesis highlights data from MINOS, a long-baseline accelerator neutrino experiment, and details one of the most sensitive searches for the sterile neutrino ever made. Further, it presents a new analysis paradigm to enable this measurement and a comprehensive study of the myriad systematic uncertainties involved in a search for a few-percent effect, while also rigorously investigating the statistical interpretation of the findings in the context of a sterile neutrino model.
Among the scientific community, this analysis was quickly recognized as a foundational measurement in light of which all previous evidence for the sterile neutrino must now be (re)interpreted. The existence of sterile neutrinos has long been one of the key questions in the field. Not only are they a central component in many theories of new physics, but a number of past experiments have yielded results consistent with their existence. Nonetheless, they remain controversial: the interpretation of the data showing evidence for these sterile neutrinos is hotly debated.

List of contents

Introduction.- Neutrino Physics.- The MINOS and MINOS+ Experiments.- Calibration and Reconstruction.- Event Selection.- Systematic Uncertainties.- The MINOS Sterile Neutrino Analysis.- Feldman-Cousins Confidence Intervals.- Near Detector Data Quality Monitoring.- Conclusions and Future Outlook.

Summary

Nominated as an outstanding Ph.D. thesis by the University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
Presents an analysis of the world’s leading limit on sterile neutrinos mixing with muon neutrinos

Offers the most rigorous statistical treatment ever made of a search for sterile neutrinos

Product details

• Authors: Ashley Michael Timmons
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.01.2018
• EAN: 9783319876306
• ISBN: 978-3-31-987630-6
• No. of pages: 162
• Dimensions: 155 mm x 10 mm x 235 mm
• Weight: 290 g
• Illustrations: XX, 162 p. 116 illus., 111 illus. in color.
• Series: Springer Theses
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Physics, astronomy > Theoretical physics; Astrophysik, B, Astrophysics, Physics and Astronomy, Quantum field theory, Elementary particles (Physics), Elementary Particles, Quantum Field Theory, Astrophysics and Astroparticles, Mixing Angles, Neutrino Mass Splitting