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Browsing by Author "Pestes, Rebekah Faith"

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    Precision Neutrino Oscillations: Important Considerations for Experiments
    Pestes, Rebekah Faith (Virginia Tech, 2021-05-26)
    Currently, we are in an era of neutrino physics in which neutrino oscillation experiments are focusing on doing precision measurements. In this dissertation, we investigate what is important to consider when doing these precise experiments, especially in light of significant unresolved anomalies. We look at four general categories of considerations: systematic uncertainties, fundamental assumptions, parameterization-dependence of interpretations, and Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) scenarios. By performing a simulation using GLoBES, we find that uncertainties in the fine structure of the reactor neutrino spectrum could be vitally important to JUNO, a reactor neutrino experiment being built in China, so a reference spectrum with comparable energy resolution to JUNO is needed in order to alleviate this uncertainty. In addition, we determine that with their fix of the fine structure problem, JUNO can test the existence of a quantum interference term in the oscillation probability. We also reason that the CP-violating phase is very parameterization dependent, and the Jarlskog invariant is better for talking about amounts of CP violation in neutrino oscillations. Finally, we discover that CP-violating neutrino Non-Standard Interactions (NSIs) could already be affecting the outcomes of T2K and NOνA, two accelerator neutrino experiments, and may be why there is a tension in these two data sets.