Date Awarded

Fall 2016

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Department

Physics

Advisor

Michael Kordosky

Committee Member

Jeffrey Nelson

Committee Member

Todd Averett

Committee Member

Keith Griffioen

Committee Member

Laura Fields

Abstract

Neutrino interactions in the detectors of long baseline oscillation experiments are analyzed to determine the neutrino flavor and energy spectrum, allowing the neutrino mass ordering and mixing parameters to be determined. For neutrino interactions below the pion production threshold, the dominant reaction is charged current quasi-elastic (CCQE) scattering. Oscillation experiments are made of heavy nuclei so the QE process occurs on nucleons that are embedded in the nuclear environment. Predictions of the QE cross-section suffer from significant uncertainties due to our understanding of that nuclear environment and the way it is probed by the weak interaction. I have developed a new technique to reduce the inelastic background to CCQE process by identifying the "Michel electrons" produced by pions. Additionally an updated neutrino flux was used to extract the cross-section and estimates for some sources of systematic uncertainties have been improved. The measured cross-section is compared to several theoretical models and the effect that the signal definition ("CCQE" vs "CCQE-like") has on the measurement is also explored.

DOI

http://doi.org/10.21220/S2Q077

Rights

© The Author

Download

Share Feedback

Included in

Physics Commons

Share

COinS