Neutrino velocity measurement with the OPERA experiment in the CNGS beam

The thesis concerns the measurement of the neutrino velocity with the OPERA experiment in the CNGS beam. There are different theoretical models that allow for Lorentz violating effects which can be investigated with measurements on terrestrial neutrino beams. The MINOS experiment published in 2007 a measure on the muon neutrinos over a distance of 730 km finding a deviation with respect to the expected time of flight of 126 ns with a statistical error of 32 ns and a systematic error of 64 ns. The OPERA experiment observes as well muon neutrinos 730 km away from the source, with a sensitivity significantly better than MINOS thanks to the higher number of interactions in the detector due to the higher energy beam and the much more sophisticated timing system explicitly upgraded in view of the neutrino velocity measurement. This system is composed by atomic cesium clocks and GPS receivers operating in "common view mode". Thanks to this system a time-transfer between the two sites with a precision at the level of 1 ns is possible. Moreover, a Fast Waveform Digitizer was installed along the proton beam line at CERN in order to measure the internal time structure of the proton pulses that are sent to the CNGS target. The result on the neutrino velocity is the most precise measurement so far with terrestrial neutrino beams: the neutrino time of flight was determined with a statistical uncertainty of about 10 ns and a systematic uncertainty smaller than 20 ns.