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Double Chooz est une expérience dédiée à la mesure de l'angle de mélange θ₁₃ caractérisant le phénomène d’oscillation des neutrinos. Elle consiste en l’installation de deux détecteurs identiques respectivement installés à 400 m et 1050 m des deux réacteurs à eau pressurisée de la centrale nucléaire de Chooz dans les Ardennes. Les réacteurs nucléaires sont en effet à l’origine d’un flux intense d’antineutrinos électroniques (de l’ordre de 10²¹ ⊽ₑ/s pour un réacteur de 1GWe)qui peut être détecté par réaction bêta inverse dans le liquide scintillant des détecteurs : ⊽ₑ + p −> e⁺ + n. Le paramètre θ₁₃ peut ensuite être déterminé en cherchant une réduction du nombre d’antineutrinos et une distorsion du flux mesuré dans le détecteur lointain par rapport au détecteur proche. La première phase de l’expérience pour laquelle uniquement le détecteur lointain prend des données a débuté en avril 2011. En l’absence du détecteur proche dont l’installation sera terminée en 2014, une prédiction du flux d’antineutrinos non oscillé attendu dans le détecteur lointain est nécessaire à la prédiction de θ₁₃ . Dans ce manuscrit, nous présentons le travail de simulation réalisé en vue de prédire les taux de fission des deux cœurs de Chooz à l’origine des antineutrinos émis par les réacteurs. Pour cela des simulations de cœur complet des réacteurs ont été développées à l’aide du code de simulation MCNP Utility for Reactor Evolution (MURE). Les résultats de ces simulations ont permis de déterminer les taux de fission et les erreurs systématiques associées durant les périodes de prise de données et d’aboutir à la première indication d’un angle θ₁₃ non-nul en novembre 2011. / The Double Chooz experiment is designed to search for a non-vanishing mixing angle θ₁₃ characterizing the ability of neutrinos to oscillate. It consists in two identical detectors located respectively at 400 m and 1050 m of the two pressurized water reactors of the Chooz nuclear plant in the French Ardennes. Indeed, nuclear reactor are huge electron antineutrino emitters (about 10²¹ ⊽ₑ/s for a 1GWe reactor). In Double Chooz, antineutrino sare detected by the inverse beta decay process in the liquid scintillator of the detectors : ⊽ₑ + p −> e⁺ + n. The θ₁₃ parameter can be investigated searching for ⊽ₑ disappearance and ⊽ₑ energy distortion in the far detector with respect to the near detector. The first phase of the experiment during which only the far detector is taking data has started in April 2011. In absence of far detector whose installation will be completed in 2014, a prediction of the non-oscillated antineutrino flux and spectrum shape expected in the far detector is mandatory to measure θ₁₃ . In this manuscript, we present the simulation work performed to predict the fission rates of both Chooz cores responsible for the reactor antineutrino flux. In this view, a complete core model has been developed with the MCNP Utility for Reactor Evolution (MURE) simulation code. The results of these simulations were used to determine the fission rates and associated systematic errors since the beginning of data taking and led to the first indication for a non-zero θ₁₃ mixing angle in November 2011.

L'expérience OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion t-Racking Apparatus) se propose de vérifier les résultats de Super-Kamiokande, tout en détectant l'apparition de neutrino tau dans un faisceau originellement "pur" en neutrino muonique, révélée par la topologie caractéristique de la désintégration du tau. La cible d'OPERA est constituée de murs de briques qui sont une alternance de feuilles de plomb et d'émulsions. Les émulsions sont des trajectographes de grande précision (~1 micron) qui vont être utilisés en masse lors de l'expérience et leur analyse nécessite un système de scan automatisé dédié. Tout d'abord, cette thèse a consisté en la participation à la mise en place du premier laboratoire de scan en France. La précision obtenue est conforme aux exigences de l'expérience et la rapidité demandée sera atteinte dans quelques mois. Ensuite, la séparation des pions et des muons à basse énergie a étudiée. Les premiers résultats, montrant la possibilité d'une telle séparation, ont été exposés. Enfin, un programme de reconstruction de ces particules en fin de parcours a été développé et testé, tenant compte des performances de scan auparavant étudiées.

The OPERA experiment is designed to search for nu-tau appearance in almost pure CERN-SPS nu-mu beam. The OPERA detector is placed in the Gran Sasso underground laboratory which is 730 km away from CERN. It is a hybrid set-up which combines a lead/emulsion target with various electronic detectors. The detector is composed of two super modules(SM) which contains about 150,000 ECC bricks. Each of the brick is obtained by stacking 56 lead plates with 57 emulsion films. Behind the each brick, an emulsion film doublet, called Changeable Sheet (CS) is attached in order to confirm tracks produced in neutrino interactions. The CS requires very low background track density in order to ensure the expected performance in the experiment. The background tracks in CS can be erased by a special treatment called as refreshing. A refreshing facility was constructed in the LNGS laboratory. The METU group has participated in the construction of the facility and the production of the CS films from the beginning. The main steps of emulsion refreshing and the test results on emulsion quality after the refreshing will be discussed. A Monte Carlo simulation is performed in order to estimate background to nu-mu to nu-tau oscillation due to D0 production and decay in the ECC brick. It is found that this background is significant for the short decay path topology of the tau lepton.

The aim of the OPERA experiment is to verify the neutrino oscillation, directly measuring the appearance of from an initially pure beam produced at CERN. For this purpose OPERA detector is located underground Gran Sasso Laboratory(LNGS) 730 km away from CERN. The detector structure designed to be a hybrid system consisting of emulsion targets and electronic detectors. Total area of the emulsion targets in the OPERA detector is around 110000 m2 which needs fast and reliable automatic scanning systems. For this purpose, two dierent automatic scanning systems were developed in Japan and Europe. For now there are 12 scanning laboratories dedicated to the OPERA Experiment. The Emulsion Scanning Laboratory in the Physics department of METU is one of the scanning laboratories for the OPERA Experiment. The automatic scanning system in METU is European type which is using commercial hardware for easy construction and maintain. Also the laboratory has a unique feature in terms of experimental high energy physics laboratories. The emulsion scan- ning laboratory in METU is the

OPERA stands for Oscillation Project with Emulsion t-Racking Apparatus. The main goal of the OPERA experiment is to search for tau neutrino appearance in almost pure muon neutrino beam. The detector is located at Gran Sasso, 730 km away from the neutrino source, at CERN. In this thesis, the reconstruction efficiency and purity of neutrino interactions in the OPERA target have been studied by using Monte Carlo simulation. The efficiency of primary vertex reconstruction for muon neutrino Charge Current (CC) events is estimated as 83.2 percent. The main source of inefficiency is due to Quasi-elastic like topologies in which only one track is reconstructed. The purity of primary vertex tracks is found to be 99 percent. On the other hand, the reconstruction efficiency for muon neutrino CC charm events is estimated to be 90.2 percent, while the purity of the primary tracks is 67 percent. The low purity is due the fact that the secondary vertex tracks are wrongly assigned in the primary vertex. This spoils the purity.

The OPERA experiment was designed to search for nu-mu to nu-tau oscillations through the observation of nu-tau charged-current interactions in the OPERA target. This search requires a massive detector and very high spatial accuracy. Both requirements are ful

The Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) facility at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL) produces an intense muon neutrino beam used by the Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search (MINOS), a neutrino oscillation experiment, and the Main INjector ExpeRiment [nu]-A, (MINER[nu]A), a neutrino interaction experiment. Absolute neutrino cross sections are determined via [mathematical equation], where the numerator is the measured number of neutrino interactions in the MINOS Detector and the denominator is the flux of incident neutrinos. Many past neutrino experiments have measured relative cross sections due to a lack of precise measurements of the incident neutrino flux, normalizing to better established reaction processes, such as quasielastic neutrino-nucleon scattering. But recent measurements of neutrino interactions on nuclear targets have brought to light questions about our understanding of nuclear effects in neutrino interactions. In this thesis the [nu subscript mu] inclusive charged current cross section on iron is measured using the MINOS Detector. The MINOS detector consists of alternating planes of steel and scintillator. The MINOS detector is optimized to measure muons produced in charged current [nu subscript mu] interactions. Along with muons, these interactions produce hadronic showers. The neutrino energy is measured from the total energy the particles deposit in the detector. The incident neutrino flux is measured using the muons produced alongside the neutrinos in meson decay. Three ionization chamber monitors located in the downstream portion of the NuMI beamline are used to measure the muon flux and thereby infer the neutrino flux by relation to the underlying pion and kaon meson flux. This thesis describes the muon flux instrumentation in the NuMI beam, its operation over the two year duration of this measurement, and the techniques used to derive the neutrino flux. / text

<p>We describe the measurement of muon neutrino disappearance due to</p><p>neutrino oscillation using the Tokai-2-Kamiokande (T2K) experiment's Run 1-4 (6.57&times;10<super>20</super> POT)</p><p>data set. We analyze the data using the conventional</p><p>Pontecorvo-Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata (PMNS) mixing</p><p>matrix for the three Standard Model neutrinos. The output of the</p><p>analysis is a measurement of the parameters sin<super>2</super>&theta;₂₃, &Delta;m<super>2</super>₃₂ for the normal hierarchy and sin<super>2</super>&theta;₂₃, &Delta;m<super>2</super>₁₃ for</p><p>the inverted hierarchy. The best-fit oscillation</p><p>parameters for the normal hierarchy are found to be</p><p>(sin<super>2</super>&theta;₂₃, &Delta;m<super>2</super>₃₂) = ( 0.514, 2.51&times;10<super>-3</super> eV<super>2</super>/c<super>4</super>}). The 90% 1D confidence interval -- determined for both parameters</p><p>using the Feldman-Cousins procedure -- is for the normal hierarchy</p><p>0.428 < sin<super>2</super>&theta;₂₃ < 0.598 and</p><p>2.34&times;10<super>-3</super> eV<super>2</super>/c<super>4</super> < &Delta;m<super>2</super>₃₂ < 2.68\times10^{-3} eV<super>2</super>/c<super>4</super>. </p><p>For the inverted hierarchy, the best-fit oscillation parameters are</p><p>(sin<super>2</super>&theta;₂₃, &Delta;m<super>2</super>₁₃) = (0.511, 2.48&times;10<super>-3</super> eV<super>2</super>/c<super>4</super>. The 90\% 1D Feldman-Cousins confidence intervals for the inverted hierarchy are 2.31&times;10<super>-3</super> eV<super>2</super>/c<super>4</super> < \Delta m^2_{13} < 2.64&times;10<super>-3</super> eV<super>2</super>/c<super>4</super>.</p> / Dissertation

A prototype time projection chamber has been designed and constructed to study the performance that can be expected by the large scale time projection chambers in the ND280m detector of the Tokai to Kamioka (T2K) neutrino oscillation experiment. Tests using the prototype will indicate any changes necessary to the fullscale design in order to meet the physics goals of the detectors. Some TPC gas parameters are measured, including the drift velocity, diffusion constant, and electron attachment coefficient. The spatial resolution of the TPC is also measured, and results are presented for two candidate TPC gasses.