European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields (Oct 2024)

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

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

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-024-13423-z
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 84, no. 10
pp. 1 – 14

Abstract

Read online

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 $$60\%$$ 60 % 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.