Graduation Semester and Year
2023
Language
English
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Physics and Applied Physics
Department
Physics
First Advisor
Benjamin JP Jones
Abstract
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is a cubic-kilometer-scale neutrino observatory built using a gigaton of instrumented ice near the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica; it measures the Cherenkov light emitted by the daughter particles of deep inelastic scattering interactions occurring inside and around the detector from neutrinos of both astrophysical and atmospheric origin. For eV2-scale sterile neutrino models, matter-effects can yield resonant muon antineutrino to sterile oscillations for TeV-scale up-going neutrinos. For certain combinations of mixing angles, this is expected to yield resonant muon antineutrino to tau antineutrino oscillations at the same energies and angles as the muon neutrino disappearance. This superimposed muon neutrino disappearance and tau neutrino appearance presents itself as an ideal signature with which we can search for indications of sterile neutrino oscillations. This dissertation presents the development of novel techniques for quantifying new sources of detector uncertainty, new simulation methods, calculations of the detector's sensitivity to these processes, and applies each of these in a multi-channel analysis searching for signs of both the resonant muon neutrino disappearance alongside the tau neutrino appearance. The analysis finds a best fit at a mass-squared splitting of 7 eV2, |U_{mu 4}|2=0.03, and |U_{tau 4}|2 =0.0, indicating no significant preference for a sterile neutrino.
Keywords
Neutrino, Oscillation, Sterile neutrino, Sterile, 3+1 sterile, Icecube, Icecube neutrino observatory, Astrophysical neutrino, Atmospheric neutrino
Disciplines
Physical Sciences and Mathematics | Physics
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Smithers, Benjamin Randolph, "A Multi-Channel Search for Signatures of eV2-Scale Sterile Neutrinos in IceCube" (2023). Physics Dissertations. 174.
https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/physics_dissertations/174
Comments
Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington