A Demonstration of Light Guides for Light Detection in Liquid Argon TPCs

Liquid Argon (LAr) Time Projection Chambers (TPCs) are a developing technology that is becoming a popular choice for neutrino and dark matter experiments due to the low cost of the LAr as a target material and the high signal efficiency and background rejection that these detectors can achieve. When excited by a passing charged particle created in a neutrino interaction, argon produces scintillation light at 128 nm. Several types of systems exist for detecting this light. Most involve shifting the wavelength of the light using Tetraphenyl Butadiene (TPB), resulting in visible light which is detected by a PMT.I will discuss our work on a new system under development for light detection in LAr which uses acrylic lightguides. The lightguides are coated with a thin film consisting of TPB embedded in polystyrene. This system could provide a solution to some of the issues associated with scaling existing systems for a larger future LAr detector. Though we are only in the preliminary stages of this R&D, we have shown that the results are already sufficient for triggering

First Measurement of Monoenergetic Muon Neutrino Charged Current Interactions

We report the first measurement of monoenergetic muon neutrino charged current interactions. MiniBooNE has isolated 236 MeV muon neutrino events originating from charged kaon decay at rest ($K^+ \rightarrow \mu^+ \nu_\mu$) at the NuMI beamline absorber. These signal $\nu_\mu$-carbon events are distinguished from primarily pion decay in flight $\nu_\mu$ and $\overline{\nu}_\mu$ backgrounds produced at the target station and decay pipe using their arrival time and reconstructed muon energy. The significance of the signal observation is at the 3.9$\sigma$ level. The muon kinetic energy, neutrino-nucleus energy transfer ($\omega=E_\nu-E_\mu$), and total cross section for these events is extracted. This result is the first known-energy, weak-interaction-only probe of the nucleus to yield a measurement of $\omega$ using neutrinos, a quantity thus far only accessible through electron scattering.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Sterile neutrino searches in MiniBooNE and MicroBooNE

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Physics, 2014.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 144-154).Tension among recent short baseline neutrino experiments has pointed toward the possible need for the addition of one or more sterile (non-interacting) neutrino states into the existing neutrino oscillation framework. This thesis first presents the motivation for sterile neutrino models by describing the short-baseline anomalies that can be addressed with them. This is followed by a discussion of the phenomenology of these models. The MiniBooNE experiment and results are then described in detail, particularly the most recent anti-neutrino analysis. This will be followed by a discussion of global fits to world data, including the anomalous data sets. Lastly, future experiments will be addressed, especially focusing on the MicroBooNE experiment and light collection studies. In particular, understanding the degradation source of TPB, designing the TPB-coated plates for MicroBooNE and developing light guide collection systems will be discussed. We find an excess of events in the Mini-anti-neutrinoutrino mode results consistent with the LSND anomaly, but one that has a different energy dependence than the low-energy excess reported in neutrino mode. This disagreement creates tension within global fits which include up to three sterile neutrinos. The low-energy excess will be addressed by the MicroBooNE experiment, which is expected to start taking data in early 2015. Tension among existing experiments calls for additional, more decisive future experiments.by Christina M. Ignarra.Ph. D

First Measurement of Monoenergetic Muon Neutrino Charged Current Interactions

We report the first measurement of monoenergetic muon neutrino charged current interactions. MiniBooNE has isolated 236 MeV muon neutrino events originating from charged kaon decay at rest (K+→μ+νμ) at the NuMI beamline absorber. These signal νμ-carbon events are distinguished from primarily pion decay in flight νμ and ¯νμ backgrounds produced at the target station and decay pipe using their arrival time and reconstructed muon energy. The significance of the signal observation is at the 3.9σ level. The muon kinetic energy, neutrino-nucleus energy transfer (ω=Eν−Eμ), and total cross section for these events are extracted. This result is the first known-energy, weak-interaction-only probe of the nucleus to yield a measurement of ω using neutrinos, a quantity thus far only accessible through electron scattering