Download or read book Studies of Nu-mu to Nu-e Oscillation Appearance in the MINOS Experiment written by Alexandre Bruno Pereira e Sousa and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The MINOS experiment uses a long baseline neutrino beam, measured 1 km downstream from its origin in the Near Detector at Fermilab, and 734 km later in the large underground Far Detector in the Soudan mine. By comparing these two measurements, MINOS can probe the atmospheric domain of the neutrino oscillation phenomenology with unprecedented precision. Besides the ability to perform a world leading determination of the {Delta}m{sub 23}{sup 2} and {theta}{sub 23} parameters, via {nu}{sub {mu}} flux disappearance, MINOS has the potential to make a leading measurement of {nu}{sub {mu}} {yields} {nu}{sub e} oscillations in the atmospheric sector by looking for {nu}{sub e} appearance at the Far Detector. The observation of {nu}{sub e} appearance, tantamount to establishing a non-zero value of the {theta}{sub 13} mixing angle, opens the way to studies of CP violation in the leptonic sector, the neutrino spectral mass pattern ordering and neutrino oscillations in matter, the driving motivations of the next generation of neutrino experiments. In this thesis, we study the MINOS potential for measuring {theta}{sub 13} in the context of the MINOS Mock Data Challenge using a multivariate discriminant analysis method. We show the method's validity in the application to {nu}{sub e} event classification and background identification, as well as in its ability to identify a {nu}{sub e} signal in a Mock Data sample generated with undisclosed parameters. An independent shower reconstruction method based on three-dimensional hit matching and clustering was developed, providing several useful discriminator variables used in the multivariate analysis method. We also demonstrate that within 2 years of running, MINOS has the potential to improve the current best limit on {theta}{sub 13}, from the CHOOZ experiment, by a factor of 2.