A measurement of electron neutrino appearance with the MINOS experiment

MINOS is a long-baseline two-detector neutrino oscillation experiment that uses a high intensity muon neutrino beam to investigate the phenomenon of neutrino oscillations. By measuring the neutrino interactions in a detector near the neutrino source and again 735 km away from the production site, it is possible to probe the parameters governing neutrino oscillations. The majority of the numu oscillate to nutau but a small fraction may oscillate instead to nue. This thesis presents a measurement of the nue appearance rate in the MINOS far detector using the first two years of exposure. Methods for constraining the far detector backgrounds using the near detector measurements are discussed and a technique for estimating the uncertainty on the background and signal selection are developed. A 1.5sigma excess over the expected background rate is found providing a hint of nu e appearance.