Date Thesis Awarded
4-2018
Access Type
Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only
Degree Name
Bachelors of Science (BS)
Department
Physics
Advisor
Mike Kordosky
Committee Members
Irina Novikova
Evgenia Smirni
Abstract
The discovery of neutrino oscillations allows for new studies on charge-parity (CP) violation in the neutrino sector. Such studies require detectors with high calorimetric and spatial resolution. The Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) is a new detector technology with higher energy and spatial resolution than previous neutrino detectors. The Liquid Argon In A Testbeam (LArIAT) experiment is a research and development LArTPC for the next generation of detectors. In this paper I present a methodology for measuring the pion Charge-Exchange (CEX) cross section with the LArIAT detector. This methodology uses the theory of the passage of particles through matter to identify particles in the liquid argon volume via their dE/dx curves and uses boosted decision trees (BDT) to characterize detector effects. This analysis reconstructs the invariant mass of pi-0 decays in order to identify CEX events and uses a pi-minus flux counting methodology to make a cross section measurement.
Recommended Citation
Nelson, Kevin, "Pion Charge Exchange Cross Section on Liquid Argon" (2018). Undergraduate Honors Theses. William & Mary. Paper 1246.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/1246
