Next discoveries in neutrino mixing: Electron neutrino appearance

The discovery of neutrino oscillation is a clear evidence of new physics beyond the Standard Model. Measurements of electron neutrino (nu e) and electron anti-neutrino (nu e) appearances are the most important channels to complete the neutrino mixing matrix. In a nue/ nue appearance experiment, a near detector (ND) is used to constrain the neutrino flux and measure the backgrounds to the signal. Backgrounds to the nue appearance comes from Neutral Current Muon Neutrino Interactions (numu-NC), Charged Current Muon Neutrino Interactions (numu-CC), beam nu e events and outside backgrounds. The background components are then extrapolated to the far detector (FD). By looking for excess of signal nu e/nue-like events in FD, we measure the neutrino mixing angle, neutrino's mass hierarchy and the elusive CP-violation in the lepton sector.;This dissertation focuses on the signals and backgrounds in nu e/nue appearance measurements. The first part of the dissertation presents an analysis of nue appearance in a large Water Cherenkov detector such as the one proposed by the LBNE collaboration. The analysis, including scanning thousands of events, aims to distinguish nu e signals from the NC backgrounds. The second part of the dissertation presents measurements of Resonance Neutrino Interactions using the NOMAD data. This process plays a critical role in not only neutrino-nuclear cross section but also in the precision analysis of the next generation of neutrino oscillation experiments such as NOnuA and LBNE. The last part of the dissertation discusses the method of using low-nu fit method to measure relative neutrino flux and constrain beam nue background.