Speaker
Ryan Patterson
(California Institute of Technology)
Description
MINOS is a long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment situated along Fermilab's high-intensity NuMI neutrino beam. The beam traverses two large iron-scintillator tracking calorimeters: the 0.98 kton near detector located 1 km from the production target and the 5.4 kton far detector sited 735 km downstream in the Soudan mine in northern Minnesota. By looking for an excess of candidate $\nu_e$ events at the far detector, MINOS has performed a preliminary search for subdominant $\nu_\mu\rightarrow\nu_e$ oscillations in the atmospheric regime. We present the analysis developed for this search and the $\sin^2 2\theta_{13}$ limits obtained. We also describe the upgrades and outlook for the full analysis, which uses 2.3$\times$ more data and is expected out next year. MINOS has the sensitivity to provide the first hint of a non-zero $\theta_{13}$ or to set a new upper limit, surpassing that from the CHOOZ reactor experiment.
Author
Ryan Patterson
(California Institute of Technology)
