Journal Article

Rejecting cosmic background for exclusive charged current quasi elastic neutrino interaction studies with Liquid Argon TPCs; a case study with the MicroBooNE detector

Nienaber, P, Duffy, K, Shaevitz, M H, Asaadi, J, Collin, G H, Usher, T, R G Van de Water, Pandey, V, Diaz, A, Wei, H, Thornton, R T, Cianci, D, X Ji, Anthony, J, Barnes, C, Fitzpatrick, R S, Yang, T, Moore, C D, Genty, V, Jiang, L, Kreslo, I, Fadeeva, A A, Blake, A, Tufanli, S, Pate, S F, Scanavini, G, Paolone, V, Carr, R, de Vries, J Jan, Mooney, M, Seligman, W, Bolton, T, Guzowski, P, Marchionni, A, Goeldi, D, Johnson, R A, Auger, M, Piasetzky, E, Bay, F, Viren, B, I Caro Terrazas, Garcia-Gamez, D, Cohen, E O, R Castillo Fernandez, Smith, A, Papavassiliou, V, Sword-Fehlberg, S, Soderberg, M, Balasubramanian, S, Barr, G, Soleti, S R, Murrells, R, Sinclair, J, Wickremasinghe, D A, Luethi, M, Lister, A, Qian, X, Alrashed, M, Lundberg, B, Ren, L, Hen, O, Hourlier, A, Kobilarcik, T, Convery, M, Mettler, T, Hill, C, Littlejohn, B R, Meddage, V, E-C, Huang, Van De Pontseele, W, von Rohr, C Rudolf, Thomson, M, Williams, Z, Grosso, R, Szelc, A M, Moon, J, Ereditato, A, Horton-Smith, G A, Wierman, K, Cerati, G, Zhang, C, Murphy, M, Cooper-Troendle, L, Rochester, L, Sutton, K, Mistry, K, Sharankova, R, Franco, D, Gollapinni, S, Schukraft, A, Weber, M, Crespo-Anadón, J I, Won

2019

Overview

Cosmic ray (CR) interactions can be a challenging source of background for neutrino oscillation and cross-section measurements in surface detectors. We present methods for CR rejection in measurements of charged-current quasielastic-like (CCQE-like) neutrino interactions, with a muon and a proton in the final state, measured using liquid argon time projection chambers (LArTPCs). Using a sample of cosmic data collected with the MicroBooNE detector, mixed with simulated neutrino scattering events, a set of event selection criteria is developed that produces an event sample with minimal contribution from CR background. Depending on the selection criteria used a purity between 50 and 80% can be achieved with a signal selection efficiency between 50 and 25%, with higher purity coming at the expense of lower efficiency. While using a specific dataset and selection criteria values optimized for the MicroBooNE detector, the concepts presented here are generic and can be adapted for various studies of exclusive \\[\\nu _{\\mu }\\] CCQE interactions in LArTPCs.

• Publisher: Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Argon / Background radiation / Case studies / Cosmic rays / Criteria / Neutrinos / Purity / Sensors / Surface detectors