Charge readout analysis in Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers for neutrino and astro-particle physics

This is an important period for High Energy Physics: many recent results, including the Higgs discovery and its characterization, confirm the Standard Model. A crucial point for the future of Particle Physics is the study of neutrino masses and mixing representing the first established evidence of physics beyond the SM. Since 2011, the large value of the ?13 mixing angle opened the way to the investigation of CP violation in the neutrino sector. A next generation long baseline neutrino experiment (DUNE) has unprecedented potential to precisely measure the neutrino oscillation parameters, determine the neutrino mass hierarchy and has a very good chance to discover evidence for CP violation in the leptonic sector. The large underground neutrino detectors needed for this task will also address the search for proton decay and the observation of supernovae neutrinos. Giant Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers (LAr TPCs) will be employed as neutrino targets and detectors. They provide bubble-chamber quality imaging coupled to excellent energy resolution and particles identification capabilities. Neutrino interactions produce secondary particles, which ionize the liquid argon. The ionization electrons drift for long distances along a uniform electric field until they reach finely segmented and instrumented anodes, producing electrical signals that are used for 3D imaging and analysis of the primary interactions. The dual-phase readout technique foresees the amplification of the ionization signal in avalanches occurring in the gas phase above the liquid argon level. This technique further enhances the performance of the LAr TPC by increasing its signal to noise ratio. The subject of thesis is the ionization charge reconstruction and analysis in the dual-phase LAr TPC: the ionization charges measurement provides information about the kinetic energy of secondary charged particles produced in neutrino interactions. In this way, it is possible to reconstruct the incoming neutrino energy, identify and reject electromagnetic shower generated by photons from pi0 decay and perform particles identification from the measurement of the specific ionization losses.The measurement of the ionization implies a detailed knowledge of the detector response and of the reconstruction algorithm. In order to achieve this knowledge a detailed analysis of the simulated energy losses has been performed by studying the differences between the theoretical knowledge and the simulation