Search for Electron Neutrino Appearance in MINOS (1109.6795v1)

Abstract: The MINOS Collaboration continues its search for $\nu_e$ appearance in the NuMI (Neutrinos at the Main Injector) beam at Fermilab. Neutrinos in the beam interact in the Near Detector, located 1 km from the beam source, allowing us to characterize the backgrounds present in our analysis. In particular, we can estimate the number of $\nu_e$ candidate events we expect to see in the Far Detector (735 km away, in the Soudan mine in northern Minnesota) in the presence or absence of $\nu_\mu \rightarrow \nu_e$ oscillation. Recent efforts to improve the sensitivity of the analysis, including upgrades to the event identification algorithm and fitting procedure, are discussed, and the latest results from the search are presented.