The Phenomenology of Non-standard Neutrino Interactions at Large Neutrino Detectors
Open Access
- Graduate Program:
- Physics
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- April 07, 2015
- Committee Members:
- Irina Mocioiu, Dissertation Advisor
- Irina Mocioiu, Committee Chair
- Douglas Cowen, Committee Member
- Tyce De Young, Committee Member
- Péter Mészáros, Committee Member
- Richard Wallace Robinett, Special Member
- Keywords:
- Neutrino
- NSI
- IceCube
- DeepCore
- Abstract:
- The standard theory describing neutrino oscillations only uses the interactions predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics. However, there is plenty of room for non-standard interactions (NSI) to exist. This is because extra interactions are allowed by experimental error bars and even expected at some level from effective theory arguments. My research has been in examining the phenomenological consequences of NSI at large atmospheric neutrino detectors like IceCube DeepCore. Of particular focus are the degeneracies between and within the standard neutrino oscillation parameters and the NSI parameters. These degeneracies will be explored both analytically and numerically, and strategies to lift them will also be discussed.