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Published November 1, 2008 | public
Journal Article

The magnetized steel and scintillator calorimeters of the MINOS experiment

Abstract

The Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search (MINOS) experiment uses an accelerator-produced neutrino beam to perform precision measurements of the neutrino oscillation parameters in the "atmospheric neutrino" sector associated with muon neutrino disappearance. This long-baseline experiment measures neutrino interactions in Fermilab's NuMI neutrino beam with a near detector at Fermilab and again 735 km downstream with a far detector in the Soudan Underground Laboratory in northern Minnesota. The two detectors are magnetized steel-scintillator tracking calorimeters. They are designed to be as similar as possible in order to ensure that differences in detector response have minimal impact on the comparisons of event rates, energy spectra and topologies that are essential to MINOS measurements of oscillation parameters. The design, construction, calibration and performance of the far and near detectors are described in this paper.

Additional Information

© 2008 Elsevier B.V. Received 21 May 2008; revised 1 August 2008; accepted 6 August 2008. Available online 15 August 2008. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.K. Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the State and University of Minne- sota, the Office of Special Accounts for Research Grants of the University of Athens, Greece, and FAPESP (Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo) and CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico) in Brazil. This experiment would not have been possible without the dedicated efforts of the members of the Fermilab Accelerator and Particle Physics Divisions in building and operating the NuMI neutrino beamline. We thank the members of the Beam Design Group at the Institute for High Energy Physics, Protvino, Russia for their important contributions to the designs of the neutrino-beam target and horn systems. We gratefully acknowledge the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources for their assistance and for allowing us access to the facilities of the Soudan Underground Mine State Park. We also thank the crew of the Soudan Underground Laboratory for their tireless work in building and operating the MINOS far detector. Students in the University of Minnesota Mechanical Engineering Department made substantial contributions to the design of the scintillator module crimping machine.

Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 20, 2023