Using Quasi-Elastic Events to Measure Neutrino Oscillations with MINOS Detectors in the NuMI Neutrino Beam

Abstract

MINOS (Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search) experiment has been designed to search for a change in the flavor composition of a beam of muon neutrinos as they travel between the Near Detector at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the Far Detector in the Soudan mine in Minnesota, 735 km from the target. The MINOS oscillation analysis is mainly performed with the charged current (CC) events and sensitive to constrain high-{Delta}m{sup 2} values. However, the quasi-elastic (QEL) charged current interaction is dominant in the energy region important to access low-{Delta}m{sup 2} values. For further improvement, the QEL oscillation analysis is performed in this dissertation. A data sample based on a total of 2.50 x 10{sup 20} POT is used for this analysis. In summary, 55 QEL-like events are observed at the Far detector while 87.06 {+-} 13.17 (syst.) events are expected with null oscillation hypothesis. These data are consistent with {nu}{sub {mu}} disappearance via oscillation with {Delta}m{sup 2} = 2.10 {+-} 0.37 (stat.) {+-} 0.24 (syst.) eV{sup 2} and the maximal mixing angle.