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MEASUREMENT OF 013 IN THE DOUBLE CHOOZ EXPERIMENT
Title
MEASUREMENT OF 013 IN THE DOUBLE CHOOZ EXPERIMENT
Creator
Yang, Guang
Date
2016, 2016-12
Description
Neutrino oscillation has been established for over a decade. The mixing angle 013 is one of the parameters that is most difficult to measure...
Show moreNeutrino oscillation has been established for over a decade. The mixing angle 013 is one of the parameters that is most difficult to measure due to its small value. Currently, reactor antineutrino experiments provide the best knowledge of 013, using the electron antineutrino disappearance phenomenon. The most compelling advantage is the high intensity of the reactor antineutrino rate. The Double Chooz experiment, located on the border of France and Belgium, is such an experiment, which aims to have one of the most precise 013 measurements in the world. Dou- ble Chooz has a single-detector phase and a double-detector phase. For the single- detector phase, the limit of the 013 sensitivity comes mostly from the reactor flux. However, the uncertainty on the reactor flux is highly suppressed in the double- detector phase. Oscillation analyses for the two phases have different strategies but need similar inputs, including background estimation, detection systematics evalua- tion, energy reconstruction and so on. The Double Chooz detectors are filled with gadolinium (Gd) doped liquid scintillator and use the inverse beta decay (IBD) sig- nal so that for each phase, there are two independent 013 measurements based on different neutron capturer (Gd or hydrogen). Multiple oscillation analyses are per- formed to provide the best 013 results. In addition to the 013 measurement, Double Chooz is also an excellent playground" to do diverse physics research. For example, a 252Cf calibration source study has been done to understand the spontaneous decay of this radioactive source. Further, Double Chooz also has the ability to do a sterile neutrino search in a certain mass region. Moreover, some new physics ideas can be tested in Double Chooz. In this thesis, the detailed methods to provide precise 013 measurement will be described and the other physics topics will be introduced.
Ph.D. in Pyhsics, December 2016
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DESIGN OF A COVARIANCE MATRIX FITTER TO MEASURE THE ELECTRON ANTINEUTRINO OSCILLATION PARAMETERS USING NEUTRON HYDROGEN CAPTURE AT THE DAYA BAY EXPERIMENT
Title
DESIGN OF A COVARIANCE MATRIX FITTER TO MEASURE THE ELECTRON ANTINEUTRINO OSCILLATION PARAMETERS USING NEUTRON HYDROGEN CAPTURE AT THE DAYA BAY EXPERIMENT
Creator
De Arcos Rodr´iguez, Jos´e Fernando
Date
2015, 2015-12
Description
The Daya Bay experiment provided the first precision measurement of the third mixing angle of the Pontecorvo-Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata matrix (✓13)...
Show moreThe Daya Bay experiment provided the first precision measurement of the third mixing angle of the Pontecorvo-Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata matrix (✓13) using six detectors to determine the relative rates of correlated signals generated from gadolinium neutron capture and positron-electron annihilation gammas in the inverse beta decay process. An additional correlated hydrogen neutron capture signal is produced in the Daya Bay detectors. Its analysis has the potential of producing an independent measurement of the electron antineutrino oscillation parameters. In this thesis a fitter has been designed to measure ✓13 and the squared mass di↵erence (#m2 ee) using the shape information of the hydrogen neutron capture signal generated in the Daya Bay experiment detectors. The main challenges of the hydrogen capture signal are the high accidental background rates in the lower energy region, and hydrogen’s neutron capture cross-section being much lower than gadolinium’s. In order to have a significant signal, we had to use more aggressive selection cuts than those applied in the gadolinium neutron capture analysis, and the fiducial volume was expanded by including the gadolinium-free gamma catcher region. Both background and detector systematic uncertainties studies have been repeated for the new hydrogen signal conditions. The results of these studies have been used to produce the corresponding covariance matrices that account for the uncertainties in a covariance matrix fitter. The fitter is customizable, i.e., energy binning, antineutrino detector configuration, data periods to be fitted, reactor periods, detector response matrices and predictions can be configured using a graphical user interface, providing versatility for further research. The fitter performance has been tested in the two dimensional parameter space S ⇥ D, where S = !sin2(2✓13) 2 [0, 0.002, 0.004, ...0.2]} and D = {#m2 ee 2 [0.0015, 0.00152, 0.00154...0.0035]}, using nominal and statistically fluctuated antineutrino spectrum predictions.
Ph.D. in Physics, December 2015
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