Giles Barr

Abstract:

The single-phase liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) provides a large amount of detailed information in the form of fine-grained drifted ionization charge from particle traces. To fully utilize this information, the deposited charge must be accurately extracted from the raw digitized waveforms via a robust signal processing chain. Enabled by the ultra-low noise levels associated with cryogenic electronics in the MicroBooNE detector, the precise extraction of ionization charge from the induction wire planes in a single-phase LArTPC is qualitatively demonstrated on MicroBooNE data with event display images, and quantitatively demonstrated via waveform-level and track-level metrics. Improved performance of induction plane calorimetry is demonstrated through the agreement of extracted ionization charge measurements across different wire planes for various event topologies. In addition to the comprehensive waveform-level comparison of data and simulation, a calibration of the cryogenic electronics response is presented and solutions to various MicroBooNE-specific TPC issues are discussed. This work presents an important improvement in LArTPC signal processing, the foundation of reconstruction and therefore physics analyses in MicroBooNE.

Abstract:

Hyper-Kamiokande consists of two identical water-Cherenkov detectors of total 520~kt with the first one in Japan at 295~km from the J-PARC neutrino beam with 2.5$^{\textrm{o}}$ Off-Axis Angles (OAAs), and the second one possibly in Korea in a later stage. Having the second detector in Korea would benefit almost all areas of neutrino oscillation physics mainly due to longer baselines. There are several candidate sites in Korea with baselines of 1,000$\sim$1,300~km and OAAs of 1$^{\textrm{o}}$$\sim$3$^{\textrm{o}}$. We conducted sensitivity studies on neutrino oscillation physics for a second detector, either in Japan (JD $\times$ 2) or Korea (JD + KD) and compared the results with a single detector in Japan. Leptonic CP violation sensitivity is improved especially when the CP is non-maximally violated. The larger matter effect at Korean candidate sites significantly enhances sensitivities to non-standard interactions of neutrinos and mass ordering determination. Current studies indicate the best sensitivity is obtained at Mt. Bisul (1,088~km baseline, $1.3^\circ$ OAA). Thanks to a larger (1,000~m) overburden than the first detector site, clear improvements to sensitivities for solar and supernova relic neutrino searches are expected.

Abstract:

The single π0 production rate in neutral current neutrino interactions on water in a neutrino beam with a peak neutrino energy of 0.6 GeV has been measured using the PØD, one of the subdetectors of the T2K near detector. The production rate was measured for data taking periods when the PØD contained water (2.64×1020 protons-on-target) and also periods without water (3.49×1020 protons-on-target). A measurement of the neutral current single π0 production rate on water is made using appropriate subtraction of the production rate with water in from the rate with water out of the target region. The subtraction analysis yields 106±41±69 signal events where the uncertainties are statistical (stat.) and systematic (sys.) respectively. This is consistent with the prediction of 157 events from the nominal simulation. The measured to expected ratio is 0.68±0.26(stat)±0.44(sys)±0.12(flux). The nominal simulation uses a flux integrated cross section of 7.63×10-39 cm2 per nucleon with an average neutrino interaction energy of 1.3 GeV.