Diamond Muon Monitors for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment

The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment is currently in development and is scheduled to begin taking data in the mid-2020s. This experiment will have better sensitivity than any neutrino experiment built to date to the neutrino oscillation parameters that determine charge conjugation and parity violation, the mass hierarchy, and flavor mixing angles. Accurate understanding of the neutrino fluxes at both the near and far detectors is integral to this experiment, however the neutrino flux is notoriously difficult to measure. Therefore, measuring the flux of the muons, which are created as a byproduct when pions decay into neutrinos, can provide information about the neutrino flux itself. Additionally, monitoring the muon beam provides a safety check on the integrity of upstream equipment and beam alignment. This thesis will focus on a detector system that comprises a series of diamond solid-state ionization detectors which will measure the spatial distribution and intensity of muons in the early stage of neutrino creation. This important beam monitoring system will track beam stability and intensity, and monitor the muon flux upstream of the near detector. Development of this detector system involves building and testing a prototype detector, testing commercial detectors, and developing and running a simulation to compare with the commercial detectors