Neutrino and antineutrino inclusive charged-current cross section measurements with the MINOS near detector
This thesis presents the measurement of energy dependence of the neutrino-nucleon inclusive charged current cross section on an isoscalar target in the range 3-50 GeV for neutrinos and 5-50 GeV energy range for antineutrinos. The data set was collected with the MINOS Near Detector using the wide band NuMI beam at Fermilab. The size of the charged current sample is 1.94 x 10{sup 6} neutrino events and 1.60 x 10{sup 5} antineutrino events. The flux has been extracted using a low hadronic energy sub-sample of the charged current events. The energy dependence of the cross section is obtained by dividing the charged current sample with the extracted flux. The neutrino and antineutrino cross section exhibits a linear dependence on energy at high energy but shows deviations from linear behavior at low energy. We also present a measurement of the ratio of antineutrino to neutrino inclusive cross section.

title: Ultrahigh energy cosmic ray composition from surface air shower and underground muon measurements at Soudan 2.
abstract: The Soudan 2 experiment has performed time-coincident cosmic ray air shower and underground muon measurements. Comparisons to Monte Carlo predictions show that such measurements can make statistically significant tests of the primary composition in the knee region of the cosmic ray spectrum. The results do not support any significant increase in the average primary mass with energy in the range of {similar_to}10{sup 4} TeV per nucleus. Some systematic uncertainties remain, however, particularly in the Monte Carlo modeling of the cosmic ray shower.

title: Testing Lorentz invariance and CPT conservation with NuMI neutrinos in the MINOS near detector.
abstract: A search for a sidereal modulation in the MINOS near detector neutrino data was performed. If present, this signature could be a consequence of Lorentz and CPT violation as predicted by the effective field theory called the standard-model extension. No evidence for a sidereal signal in the data set was found, implying that there is no significant change in neutrino propagation that depends on the direction of the neutrino beam in a sun-centered inertial frame. Upper limits on the magnitudes of the Lorentz and CPT violating terms in the standard-model extension lie between 10(-4) and 10(-2) of the maximum expected, assuming a suppression of these signatures by a factor of 10(-17).

title: Search for flavor-changing non-standard neutrino interactions by MINOS
abstract: We report new constraints on flavor-changing non-standard neutrino interactions from the MINOS experiment, in which neutrino versus antineutrino interactions can be distinguished on an event-by-event basis. We analyzed a combined set of beam neutrino and antineutrino data from the well-understood NuMI beam, and found no evidence for deviations from standard neutrino mixing. The observed energy spectra constrain the non-standard neutrino interactions parameter to the range −0.20

title: Search for magnetic monopoles with the Soudan 2 detector.
abstract: A search for grand unified theory magnetic monopoles making highly ionizing tracks in argon gas has been conducted using the Soudan 2 nucleon decay detector. This underground detector is a large fine-grained tracking calorimeter comprised of long drift tubes read out by proportional wires. No monopole candidates were observed in data taken over almost three years, yielding an upper flux limit of 8.7{times}10{sup {minus}15} cm{sup {minus}2}s{sup {minus}1}sr{sup {minus}1} for monopole velocities of .

title: The MINOS scintillator calorimeter system
abstract: The MINOS detectors will use extruded plastic scintillator strips, which are readout by wavelength-shifting fibres coupled to multi-pixel photodetectors. This technique provides excellent energy and spatial resolution. The MINOS detectors are described in detail along with results from the light output tests.

title: Fluorocarbon evaporative cooling developments for the ATLAS pixel and semiconductor tracking detectors
abstract: We report on the development of evaporative fluorocarbon cooling for the ATLAS Pixel and SemiConductor Tracker (SCT) detectors. Data are presented from cooling studies on representative prototype Pixel and SCT detector thermo-structures, using perfluoro-npropane (C3F8), -butane (C4F10), trifluoro-iodo-methane (CF3I) and custom C3F8/C4F10 mixtures. Thermophysical properties were calculated for custom mixtures. For most of the structures tested at full projected power dissipation, operation of silicon detector substrates at temperatures below –7oC (required for 10 year lifetime in the radiation environment of LHC) should be possible, albeit in some cases with increases in inner diameter (I.D.) of the coolant tubes from those of the present series of prototypes. Heat transfer coefficients in the range 2-5.103 Wm-2K-1 have been measured in a 3.6 mm I.D. heated tube dissipating 100 Watts close to the full equivalent power (~110 W) of a barrel SCT detector “stave” over a range of power dissipations and mass flows in the above fluids. Aspects of full-scale evaporative cooling circulator design for the ATLAS experiment are discussed, together with plans for future development.

title: A classification of second‐order raising operators for Hamiltonians in two variables
abstract: We develop a group theoretic method based on results of Winternitz et al. to compute and classify all first‐ and second‐order raising and lowering operators admitted by Hamiltonians of the form H¯=−(1/2)Δ2+V(x,y). The key to our results, which generalize to higher dimensions, is a proof that H¯ admits a second‐order raising operator only if the Schrodinger equation separates in Cartesian, polar, or elliptic coordinates.

title: CLEBSCH--GORDAN COEFFICIENTS AND SPECIAL FUNCTION IDENTITIES. II. THE ROTATION AND LORENTZ GROUPS IN 3-SPACE.
abstract: It is shown that the construction of concrete models of Clebsch‐Gordan decompositions for tensor products of irreducible group representations leads to a wide variety of special function identities. In this paper the representation theory of the rotation and Lorentz groups in 3‐space is used to give elegant derivations of identities involving Languerre, Gegenbauer, hypergeometric, and generalized hypergeometric functions. Some of these identities may be new in this general form.

title: The Cleo III silicon vertex detector
abstract: The CLEO collaboration has embarked on an ambitious upgrade of the CLEO detector to match the upgrade of the CESR accelerator to luminosities of 2 × 10 33 cm −2 sec −1 . This will bring a factor ten improvement in the measurement of rare B decays and hence, increased sensitivity to physics at high mass scales and also the possibility of measuring CP violation. The upgrade includes a new four layer double-sided silicon detector. Each double-sided silicon wafer is 2.6 cmx 5.1 cm × 300 μ m . To maximize solid angle coverage with minimal material in the detector volume the detector chains are very long, up to 5 detectors per electronic readout channel, resulting in large series resistance and large detector capacitance. Moderate backgrounds permit the electronics to operate with a 1–3 μ s shaping time. A new front-end low noise preamplifier is being developed to maximize the signal to noise ratio, along with a modified SVX chip used for analog to digital conversion and sparsification. The detectors are connected to the electronics hybrid by a thin double sided kapton flex circuit. The length of the detector chains also requires novel mechanical support structures — CVD diamond beams axe the baseline solution. We are currently near the end of the prototype stage for all aspects for the project and will move into production by late summer. The detector will be installed in early 1998.

title: Lie theory and the wave equation in space-time. 4. The Klein-Gordon equation and the Poincaré group
abstract: A detailed classification is made of all orthogonal coordinate systems for which the Klein–Gordon equation in space–time, ψtt−Δ3ψ=λψ, admits a separation of variables. We show that the Klein–Gordon equation is separable in 261 orthogonal coordinate systems. In each case the coordinate systems presented are characterized in terms of three symmetric second order commuting operators in the enveloping algebra of the Poincare group. This paper also consitutes an important step in the study of separation of variables for the wave equation in space–time ψtt−Δ3ψ=0, and its relation to the underlying conformal symmetry group O(4,2) of this equation.