Navaneeth, P; Dr. Ramesh Babu, T; Dr. Robert K Plunkett(Cochin University of Science and Technology, July 11, 2016)
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Abstract:
Experimental Neutrino Physics is an active area of research in high energy
physics. The investigation of the properties of this elusive particles
has started since it’s discovery itself. In the standard model of particle
physics, neutrinos are massless, the discovery of neutrino oscillation is the
first evidence that demands the extensions of standard model. It is well
established the existence of three active neutrinos, e, μ and , but recent
experiments like LSND and MiniBooNE has found some anomalies
in their data. These experimental data could not be explained using three
flavour neutrino oscillation physics, but they could explain the anomaly
by adding a fourth type neutrino called sterile neutrinos. The evidences
obtained from these experiments are not yet conclusive. Search for sterile
neutrino is an extensive research area in the field of neutrino physics. The
main work presented in this thesis is a sterile neutrino search at MINOS
(Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search) experiment at Fermilab, USA.
MINOS is a two detector experiment at Fermilab, which studies the
neutrinos produced at Fermilab Main Injector particle accelerator. MINOS
Near Detector is situated at 1 km away from the source and the Far
Detector is at Soudan Mine at Minnesota, 735 km away from the neutrino
source. The experiment is built to study neutrino oscillation phenomena
in the atmospheric sector and has made world class measurements on neutrino
oscillation parameters. The MINOS experiment is also capable of
looking for small perturbation in the energy spectra caused by any fourth
type of neutrino and can extract the oscillation parameters.