First Measurement of Charged Current Muon Neutrino-Induced $K^+$ Production on Argon using the MicroBooNE Detector

The MicroBooNE experiment is an 85 tonne active mass liquid argon time projection chamber neutrino detector exposed to the on-axis Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) at Fermilab. One of MicroBooNE's physics goals is the precise measurement of neutrino interactions on argon in the 1 GeV energy regime. Building on the capabilities of the MicroBooNE detector, this analysis identifies $K^{+}$ mesons, a key signature for the study of strange particle production in neutrino interactions. This measurement is furthermore valuable for background estimation for future nucleon decay searches and for improved reconstruction and particle identification capabilities in experiments such as the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). In this letter, we present the first-ever measurement of a flux-integrated cross section for charged-current muon neutrino induced $K^{+}$ production on argon nuclei, determined to be 7.93 $\pm$ 3.22 (stat.) $\pm$ 2.83 (syst.) $\times~10^{-42}\;$ cm$^2$/nucleon based on an analysis of 6.88$\times10^{20}$ protons on target. This result was found to be consistent with model predictions from different neutrino event generators within the reported uncertainties.

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arXiv (Cornell University)
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2025-03-01
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Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies
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article
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First Measurement of Charged Current Muon Neutrino-Induced $K^+$ Production on Argon using the MicroBooNE Detector

P. Englezos, N. Pallat, E. Piasetzky, E. Gramellini et al.
arXiv (Cornell University)
Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies
article

First Measurement of Charged Current Muon Neutrino-Induced $K^+$ Production on Argon using the MicroBooNE Detector

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

Abstract

The MicroBooNE experiment is an 85 tonne active mass liquid argon time projection chamber neutrino detector exposed to the on-axis Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) at Fermilab. One of MicroBooNE's physics goals is the precise measurement of neutrino interactions on argon in the 1 GeV energy regime. Building on the capabilities of the MicroBooNE detector, this analysis identifies $K^{+}$ mesons, a key signature for the study of strange particle production in neutrino interactions. This measurement is furthermore valuable for background estimation for future nucleon decay searches and for improved reconstruction and particle identification capabilities in experiments such as the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). In this letter, we present the first-ever measurement of a flux-integrated cross section for charged-current muon neutrino induced $K^{+}$ production on argon nuclei, determined to be 7.93 $\pm$ 3.22 (stat.) $\pm$ 2.83 (syst.) $\times~10^{-42}\;$ cm$^2$/nucleon based on an analysis of 6.88$\times10^{20}$ protons on target. This result was found to be consistent with model predictions from different neutrino event generators within the reported uncertainties.

arXiv (Cornell University)
New Mexico State University (US), Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (US), University of Bern (CH), Tufts University (US), Argonne National Laboratory (US), IIT Research Institute (US), Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (US), University of Kansas (US), University of California, Santa Barbara (US), Tel Aviv University (IL), Queen Mary University of London (GB), University of Pittsburgh (US), South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (US), The University of Texas at Arlington (US), Kansas State University (US), Nankai University (CN), University of Michigan (US), University of Minnesota System (US), University School of Milwaukee (US), University of Warwick (GB), University of Chicago (US), Bridge University (SS), Michigan United (US), Unidades Centrales Científico-Técnicas (ES), Indiana University Bloomington (US), Los Alamos Medical Center (US), Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (ES), Syracuse University (US), Virginia Tech (US), Michigan State University (US), Colorado State University (US), University of Edinburgh (GB), Brookhaven College (US)
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Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies
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