Neutrino Hunting: Looking through a UV Lens Scintillation Photon Detection in a Large-Volume Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber, Exposed to a Multi-GeV Charged Particle Beam
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) will be a world-class neutrino observatory and nucleon decay detector designed to answer fundamental questions about elementary particles and their role in the universe. The DUNE experiment will consist of a a Near Detector, located at Fermilab, and a Far Detector, approximately 1.5~km underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota, located $\sim$1300~km away. The accelerator complex at Fermilab will host an intense beam of neutrinos directed toward the two detectors. My dissertation centers on the implementation of technologies used to detect scintillation photon signals in liquid argon in the context of the DUNE's Far Detector Single-Phase (SP) module design, and features direct contributions to the Photon Detection System (PDS) deployed in the ProtoDUNE-SP Large-Volume Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) prototype. The PDS is needed for non-beam event timing, such as atmospheric neutrinos, proton d ecay, and supernova detection. The PDS provides a prompt signal ($t_{0}$ information) for micro-second event time determination, which improves the TPC's spatial localization along drift direction, enables accurate ionization-signal-attenuation determination, and even provides calorimetry. My dissertation will discuss an overview of the DUNE and ProtoDUNE-SP experiment and how we detect neutrinos in LAr, via charge and scintillation light. It will discuss my core experimental and analysis work, in regards to the Photon Detection System; including my contributions in establishing procedures for the commissioning and integration for the Photon Detector System that will be valuable during the construction, installation, commissioning, and operations of the DUNE Far Detector. In addition, it will comprehensively discuss the capability of three different photon detection technologies, and their characteristics and responses to muon and electron beam particles over a range of beam momenta , from 0.3~GeV/$c$ - 7~GeV/$c$. Further, the overall progress detailed in this thesis will help pave the way toward understanding the physical properties of these detectors, which will contribute to the success of the sensitivity measurements required for determining the neutrino mass hierarchy and $\delta_{CP}$.