Engineering topics
Davies, Gavin S.
Publications and source records attributed to Davies, Gavin S..
Results and Prospects from NOvA
The NOvA experiment at Fermilab uses a beam of neutrinos and two detectors separated by an 810 km baseline to observe muon neutrino disappearance and electron neutrino appearance. These measurements have the potential to reveal the remaining unknowns in neutrino oscillations, namely the mass hierarchy, the $\theta_{23}$ octant, and perhaps even hint at the violation of CP in the neutrino sector. In this talk, I will describe the current status of the NOvA experiment, present results and discuss future sensitivities.
Searches for sterile neutrinos with NOvA
Contradictory evidence has been presented on the issue of neutrino mixing between the three known active neutrinos and light sterile neutrino species. Apparent short-baseline neutrino oscillations observed by the LSND and MiniBooNE experiments, the collective evidence of the reactor neutrino anomaly, and the gallium anomaly all point towards sterile neutrinos with mass at the 1 eV level. While these results are tantalizing, they are not conclusive as they are in tension with null results from other short-baseline experiments, and with disappearance searches in longbaseline and atmospheric experiments. The NOvA (NuMI Off-Axis v e Appearance) experiment may help clarify the situation by searching for disappearance of active neutrinos from the NuMI (Neutrinos from the Main Injector) beam over a baseline of 810 km. We describe the method used by NOvA to look for oscillations into sterile neutrinos at the Far Detector (FD) through the disappearance of neutral-current (NC) neutrino events, including preliminary results of this search. In addition, the Near Detector (ND) is well suited for searching for anomalous short-baseline oscillations and probing the LSND and MiniBooNE sterile neutrino allowed regions using a variety of final states. We also present a novel method for selecting samples with high purity at the ND using convolutional neural networks. Furthermore, based on this method, the sensitivity to anomalous short-baseline nt appearance are shown, and searches for anomalous v e appearance and v μ disappearance at the NOvA ND are presented.
NOvA: Present and Future
NOvA is a next generation neutrino oscillation experiment designed to search for muon neutrino to electron neutrino oscillations by comparing electron neutrino event rates in a Near Detector at Fermilab with the rates observed in a large Far Detector at Ash River, Minnesota, 810 km from Fermilab. The detectors are totally active, segmented, liquid scintillator detectors and are located 14 mrad off the NuMI beam axis. The Far Detector has begun construction and will begin taking data in early 2013. The experiment aims to measure the neutrino mixing angle theta_13 and will push the search for electron neutrino appearance beyond the current limits by more than an order of magnitude. For non-zero theta_13, it is possible for NOvA to observe CP violation in neutrinos and establish the neutrino mass hierarchy. The NOvA prototype near detector on the surface (NDOS) began running at Fermilab in November and registered its first neutrinos from the NuMI beam in December 2010. An overview and current status of the experiment will be presented.