Demonstration of neutron identification in neutrino interactions in the MicroBooNE liquid argon time projection chamber

Abstract A significant challenge in measurements of neutrino oscillations is reconstructing the incoming neutrino energies. While modern fully-active tracking calorimeters such as liquid argon time projection chambers in principle allow the measurement of all final state particles above some detection threshold, undetected neutrons remain a considerable source of missing energy with little to no data constraining their production rates and kinematics. We present the first demonstration of tagging neutrino-induced neutrons in liquid argon time projection chambers using secondary protons emitted from neutron-argon interactions in the MicroBooNE detector. We describe the method developed to identify neutrino-induced neutrons and demonstrate its performance using neutrons produced in muon-neutrino charged current interactions. The method is validated using a small subset of MicroBooNE’s total dataset. The selection yields a sample with $$60\%$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>60</mml:mn> <mml:mo>%</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> of selected tracks corresponding to neutron-induced secondary protons. At this purity, the integrated efficiency is 8.4% for neutrons that produce a detectable proton.

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Publication Details

Journal
The European Physical Journal C
Published
2024-10-14
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-024-13423-z
Citations
4
Primary Topic
Neutrino Physics Research
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
2.64

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article

Demonstration of neutron identification in neutrino interactions in the MicroBooNE liquid argon time projection chamber

P. Englezos, N. McConkey, J. Barrow, O. Alterkait et al.
4 citations
The European Physical Journal C
Neutrino Physics Research
2.64
article

Demonstration of neutron identification in neutrino interactions in the MicroBooNE liquid argon time projection chamber

P. Englezos, N. McConkey, J. Barrow, O. Alterkait, W. C. Louis, K. Pletcher, C. Thorpe, L. E. Yates, J. Y. Book, A. P. Furmanski, M. H. Shaevitz, J. Spitz, M. Kirby, I. Kreslo, J. Shi, T. Kobilarcik, Yun-Tse Tsai, J. L. Raaf, L. Hagaman, B. Eberly, M. Bishai, S. Balasubramanian, S. R. Dennis, D. Barrow, J. J. Evans, Clancy W. James, N. Pallat, A. Chappell, V. Meddage, K. Duffy, M. Convery, J.E. Bateman, I. Pophale, F. Cavanna, A. M. Szelc, M. A. Uchida, A. Mastbaum, N. Nayak, J. M. Conrad, M. Ross-Lonergan, T. Mohayai, Ryan Cross, S. Mulleriababu, N. Taniuchi, D. Caratelli, N. Oza, V. Paolone, R. Diurba, Z. Djurcic, Hairong Wei, Z. Imani, M. Toups, B. Bogart, X. Luo, F. Gao, J. I. Crespo-Anadón, G. Cerati, L. Cooper-Troendle, L. Rochester, T. Strauss, K. Wresilo, D. Kalra, J. Marshall, P. Detje, A. F. Moor, D. Totani, A. Blake, H. B. Parkinson, Alexander Trettin, T. Wongjirad, L. Arellano, I. Safa, G. Ge, K. Terao, W. Ketchum, S. Gardiner, D. García-Gámez, N. Martinez, S. Gollapinni, Y. Li, N. Kamp, O. Palamara, V. Papavassiliou, G. A. Horton-Smith, W. Seligman, L. M. Gu, L. Mora Lepin, M. Söderberg, K. Miller, O. Hen, Wesley Tang, S. F. Pate, R. Dorrill, P. Guzowski, G. Karagiorgi, S. Berkman, A. Rafique, C. Hilgenberg, Z. Pavlovic, E. Yandel, B. T. Fleming, B. Baller, M. Stancari, O. Benevides Rodrigues, D. Naples, B. Irwin, H. W. Yu, A. Mogan, J. Nowak, R. Guenette, D. Marsden, A. Navrer-Agasson, I. Mawby, C. Mariani, G. Barr, R. Fine, A. Schukraft, M. Mooney, D. Torbunov, E. Gramellini, J. Micallef, A. J. White, A. Papadopoulou, W. Gu, M. Bhattacharya, C. Nguyen, J. Wang, K. Lin, Y. Chen, A. Ereditato, L. Camilleri, A. Bhanderi, R. Sharankova, M. Nebot-Guinot, J. Zennamo, C. Zhang, Y.-J. Jwa, S. Martynenko, P. Abratenko, J. St. John, J.-Y. Li, J. H. Jo, V. Radeka, D. Franco, M. Weber, Rob Johnson, X. Qian, M. B. Brunetti, A. Bhat, B. R. Littlejohn, M. Del Tutto, P. Green, T. Yang, W. Foreman, S. Söldner‐Rembold, T. Bolton, M. Ross-Lonergan, S. Wolbers, M. Rosenberg, S. Dytman, N. D. Patel, B. Viren, L. Ren, W. Wu, Y. Cao, E. Piasetzky, D. W. Schmitz, J. Rodriguez Rondon, M. Wospakrik, J. Asaadi, V. Basque, X. Ji, D. A. Martínez Caicedo, G. P. Zeller, J. Tyler, A. Ashkenazi, D. Andrade Aldana, M. M. Moudgalya, M. S. Ismail, C. D. Moore, A. Barnard, E. L. Snider, N. Lane, Jesus Eduardo Munoz Mendez, H. Greenlee, T. Usher, M. D. Handley, Haibo Liu
article en
4 citations

Abstract

Abstract A significant challenge in measurements of neutrino oscillations is reconstructing the incoming neutrino energies. While modern fully-active tracking calorimeters such as liquid argon time projection chambers in principle allow the measurement of all final state particles above some detection threshold, undetected neutrons remain a considerable source of missing energy with little to no data constraining their production rates and kinematics. We present the first demonstration of tagging neutrino-induced neutrons in liquid argon time projection chambers using secondary protons emitted from neutron-argon interactions in the MicroBooNE detector. We describe the method developed to identify neutrino-induced neutrons and demonstrate its performance using neutrons produced in muon-neutrino charged current interactions. The method is validated using a small subset of MicroBooNE’s total dataset. The selection yields a sample with $$60\%$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>60</mml:mn> <mml:mo>%</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> of selected tracks corresponding to neutron-induced secondary protons. At this purity, the integrated efficiency is 8.4% for neutrons that produce a detectable proton.

The European Physical Journal CVol. 84(10)
New Mexico State University (US), Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (US), University of Bern (CH), Louisiana State University (US), Tufts University (US), Argonne National Laboratory (US), University of Minnesota (US), Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (US), Los Alamos National Laboratory (US), University of California, Santa Barbara (US), Tel Aviv University (IL), Queen Mary University of London (GB), University of Pittsburgh (US), Universidad de Granada (ES), Illinois Institute of Technology (US), South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (US), The University of Texas at Arlington (US), Kansas State University (US), Brookhaven National Laboratory (US), Nankai University (CN), University of Cambridge (GB), University of Michigan (US), Harvard University Press (US), SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (US), University of Manchester (GB), University of Warwick (GB), University of Oxford (GB), University of Chicago (US), Indiana University Bloomington (US), Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (ES), Imperial College London (GB), University of Cincinnati (US), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US), Lancaster University (GB), Syracuse University (US), University of Southern Maine (US), University of Tennessee at Knoxville (US), Columbia University (US), Virginia Tech (US), Michigan State University (US), Colorado State University (US), University of Edinburgh (GB)
National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, UK Research and Innovation, Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung, Office of Science, Science and Technology Facilities Council, High Energy Physics, Nuclear Physics, Fermilab
Affordable and clean energy
Openalex Percentile: Top 7%
Neutrino Physics Research
2.64
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