Semi-contained Interactions of Atmospheric Neutrinos in the MACRO Detector

Atmospheric neutrinos arise from the decay of particles (primarily pions, muons and kaons) produced in the collision of high energy cosmic ray particles with the atmosphere. The great distances traveled by atmospheric neutrinos between their production and detection make them useful for studying neutrino oscillations, the predicted phenomenon of massive neutrinos changing flavor in flight. This thesis reports a study of atmospheric neutrinos interacting in the MACRO detector. The results, though somewhat clouded by large theoretical uncertainties, clearly rule out the no-oscillations hypothesis, and are consistent with oscillations with the parameters preferred by other MACRO neutrino analyses, as well as those of other experiments (most notably Super-Kamiokande). Combining this analysis with another MACRO neutrino analysis, some of the theoretical errors cancel, further constraining the region of allowed oscillation parameters.