Abstract
Several of the open questions discussed at the end of the last chapter can be addressed in the MINOS experiment. MINOS is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment that samples a beam consisting primarily of muon neutrinos in two locations. An overview of MINOS is given first, followed by a description of its main components: the beam and the detectors. A discussion of the MINOS data and their calibration is provided at the end of this chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
In December 2007 the decay pipe was filled with helium gas at atmospheric pressure to avoid a possible failure of the decay pipe window. The data used for this thesis, however, were obtained with the evacuated beam pipe.
- 2.
By varying the separation between the horns it is also possible to produce a higher energy beam. Such a reconfiguration of the NuMI target hall, while part of the original plan, is very time consuming and unlikely to occur in all the lifetime of the experiment. In order to distinguish this situation with the one where only the target is moved relative to the horns, the prefix “pseudo” is commonly used to denote the latter. In this thesis however the terms ME and pME, as well as HE and pHE, are used interchangeably and refer to the same beam configuration.
- 3.
The NuMI beam was designed to be used at a higher energy configuration. In 1998, the value of the atmospheric mass splitting reported by Super-Kamiokande was of (4 − 6) × 10−3eV2 at 90% C.L. [11], which puts the first oscillation peak at approximately 2.5–3.5 GeV. Previous experiments such as Soudan 2 [12] had yielded even higher values for \(\Updelta m^2_{32}\).
- 4.
It should be noted that further reducing the size would compromise containment and reduce the effectiveness of the Near Detector.
- 5.
PPO stands for (2,5-diphenyloxazole) and POPOP for (1,4-bis(5-phenyloxazol-2-yl)benzene).
- 6.
As seen below, the Far Detector is divided into two supermodules.
- 7.
The QIE is also used in experiments such as KTEV and CDF.
- 8.
In addition to the data in the LE, pME and pHE configurations, there exist small amounts of data with the same horn-target separation as in the LE configuration but with horn currents of 170 kA and of 200 kA, as opposed to the standard 185 kA. There is also some data taken in a configuration that is intermediate between pME and pHE, as well as horn-off data.
- 9.
These are the MEUs defined in the next section.
- 10.
Including the CalDet, which is described in Sect. 3.5.2.
- 11.
The pulse intensity is tuned so that a PMT pixel receives approximately 50 PEs per pulse. Due to variations in the injection fibers, in the readout fibers and in the PMT efficiencies, some PMTs receive a factor of two more or less than the average [35].
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Ochoa Ricoux, J.P. (2011). The MINOS Experiment. In: A Search for Muon Neutrino to Electron Neutrino Oscillations in the MINOS Experiment. Springer Theses. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7949-0_3
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