The Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search (MINOS) is a long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment that uses a muon-neutrino beam produced by the Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) facility at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL). The experiment is conducted with a pair of functionally identical detectors, located at two sites, the Near Detector (ND) at FNAL and the Far Detector (FD) in the Soudan Underground Laboratory in Minnesota. The NuMI beam line and the 735 km long-baseline allow a search for νμ disappearance, a rigorous test of the oscillation hypothesis, and a measurement of the Δm223 and sin2 2Θ23 mixing parameters studied previously with atmospheric neutrinos and by the K2K experiment.
I will describe the MINOS experiment and discuss highlights from the first six months of beam data-taking before presenting a measurement of Δm223 and sin2 2Θ23 based on the exposure of 1.27·1020 protons on target. I will conclude my lecture with a discussion of the experiment's prospects, including a search for subdominant νμ -> νe transitions.
