Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-2012

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Physics

Major Professor

Yuri V. Efremenko

Committee Members

Yuri A. Kamyshkov, Michael W. Guidry, Robert N. Compton

Abstract

The measurement of the remaining neutrino-mixing angle, theta-130, is a critical step toward further understanding of neutrino properties and to guide future neutrino oscillation experiments. Double Chooz has a unique opportunity to perform this measurement building on the original CHOOZ reactor anti-neutrino experiment, the experience that set the previous limits on theta-13. In the first phase of Double Chooz, 101 days of data was analyzed with only the far detector operating of a two-detector plan. In this thesis I will describe the design of the low background neutrino detector and the oscillation analysis performed. From the deficiency between the expected and measured number of electron anti-neutrinos a value of sin2(2{theta-13}) = 0.104 ± 0.03(stat) ± 0.076(syst) was found for rate only analysis and 0.086 ± 0.041(stat) ± 0.030(syst) with the rate and spectral energy shape analysis.

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