Date Thesis Awarded
5-2010
Access Type
Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only
Degree Name
Bachelors of Science (BS)
Department
Physics
Advisor
Jeffrey Kevin Nelson
Committee Members
Charles Perdrisat
Michael Kordosky
Daniel A. Cristol
Abstract
MINERvA is a new neutrino experiment whose scintillator-based detector finished construction in March 2010. Data collected by this project will be crucial to the understanding of how neutrinos interact with matter and how they may be able to transition between flavors as they travel. By analyzing energy depositions, I characterize neutrino interactions recorded by a prototype of the detector. Events described include quasielastic interactions, resonant production of pions, and deep inelastic scattering. I also use simulations to investigate the physical responsivity of the detector to incoming particles and I am able to quantify the proportionality constants governing the fraction of ionizing energy that is visible to the data acquisition apparatus as a function of particle type and initial momentum.
Recommended Citation
O'Connor, Colton, "Scanning Early Data from the MINERvA Tracking Prototype" (2010). Undergraduate Honors Theses. William & Mary. Paper 677.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/677
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Comments
Thesis is part of Honors ETD pilot project, 2008-2013. Migrated from Dspace in 2016.