Skip to main content
Duke University Libraries
DukeSpace Scholarship by Duke Authors
  • Login
  • Ask
  • Menu
  • Login
  • Ask a Librarian
  • Search & Find
  • Using the Library
  • Research Support
  • Course Support
  • Libraries
  • About
View Item 
  •   DukeSpace
  • Theses and Dissertations
  • Duke Dissertations
  • View Item
  •   DukeSpace
  • Theses and Dissertations
  • Duke Dissertations
  • View Item
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

Measurement of Tau Neutrino Appearance and Charged-current Tau Neutrino Cross Section with Atmospheric Neutrinos in Super-Kamiokande

Thumbnail
View / Download
26.0 Mb
Date
2017
Author
Li, Zepeng
Advisor
Walter, Christopher
Repository Usage Stats
327
views
204
downloads
Abstract

Super-Kamiokande is a 50 kiloton water-Cherenkov detector in Japan, which has been collecting atmospheric neutrino data for more than 20 years. Tau neutrino appearance is expected in atmospheric neutrinos due to neutrino oscillations. The wide span of neutrino energies and neutrino path lengths in atmospheric neutrinos and the large target mass of Super-Kamiokande allow a detection of charged-current tau neutrino interactions in Super-Kamiokande.

This thesis describes a search for atmospheric tau neutrino appearance and a measurement of the charged-current tau neutrino cross section in Super-Kamiokande. A neural network is applied to identify charged-current tau neutrino interactions contained in the Super-Kamiokande detector. Using 5,326 days of atmospheric neutrino data, Super-K measures the tau normalization to be 1.47$\pm$0.32 under the assumption of the normal hierarchy, relative to the expectation of unity for nominal oscillation parameters and assumed charged-current tau neutrino cross section. The result excludes the hypothesis of no-tau-appearance with

a significance level of 4.6$\sigma$, thus giving a direct evidence of neutrino flavor change due to neutrino oscillations. By scaling the cross sections in the simulations to match Super-K data, a flux-averaged charged-current tau neutrino cross section is measured to be $(0.94\pm0.20)\times 10^{-38}$ cm$^{2}$, compared with the theoretical flux-averaged charged-current tau neutrino cross section of $0.64\times 10^{-38}$ cm$^{2}$. This is the second reported measurement of this process. The measured cross section is consistent with the Standard Model prediction.

Type
Dissertation
Department
Physics
Subject
Physics
cross section
neutrino mass hierarchy
neutrino oscillation
Super-Kamiokande
tau neutrino appearance
Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/14486
Citation
Li, Zepeng (2017). Measurement of Tau Neutrino Appearance and Charged-current Tau Neutrino Cross Section with Atmospheric Neutrinos in Super-Kamiokande. Dissertation, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/14486.
Collections
  • Duke Dissertations
More Info
Show full item record
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Rights for Collection: Duke Dissertations


Works are deposited here by their authors, and represent their research and opinions, not that of Duke University. Some materials and descriptions may include offensive content. More info

Related items

Showing items related by title, author, creator, and subject.

  • Thumbnail

    Indication of electron neutrino appearance from an accelerator-produced off-axis muon neutrino beam. 

    Albert, Joshua Benjamin (2012)
    T2K (Tokai to Kamioka) is a long baseline neutrino experiment with the primary goal of measuring the neutrino mixing angle 13. It uses a muon neutrino beam, produced at the J-PARC accelerator facility in Tokai, sent through ...
  • Thumbnail

    Constraining Non-Standard Neutrino Interactions and Estimating Future Neutrino-Magnetic-Moment Sensitivity With COHERENT 

    Sinev, Gleb (2020)
    Neutrinos represent a rich field of physics that contains many theoretical problems that are yet to be solved and experimental results hinting at physics beyond the standard model of particle physics (BSM). An experiment ...
  • Thumbnail

    Measurement of Muon Neutrino Disappearance with the T2K Experiment 

    Wongjirad, Taritree (2014)
    We describe the measurement of muon neutrino disappearance due toneutrino oscillation using the Tokai-2-Kamiokande (T2K) experiment's Run 1-4 (6.57&times;10<super>20</super> POT)data set. We analyze the data using ...

Make Your Work Available Here

How to Deposit

Browse

All of DukeSpaceCommunities & CollectionsAuthorsTitlesTypesBy Issue DateDepartmentsAffiliations of Duke Author(s)SubjectsBy Submit DateThis CollectionAuthorsTitlesTypesBy Issue DateDepartmentsAffiliations of Duke Author(s)SubjectsBy Submit Date

My Account

LoginRegister

Statistics

View Usage Statistics
Duke University Libraries

Contact Us

411 Chapel Drive
Durham, NC 27708
(919) 660-5870
Perkins Library Service Desk

Digital Repositories at Duke

  • Report a problem with the repositories
  • About digital repositories at Duke
  • Accessibility Policy
  • Deaccession and DMCA Takedown Policy

TwitterFacebookYouTubeFlickrInstagramBlogs

Sign Up for Our Newsletter
  • Re-use & Attribution / Privacy
  • Harmful Language Statement
  • Support the Libraries
Duke University