Giles Barr

Abstract:

Artículo escrito por un elevado número de autores. Solo se referencia el que aparece en primer lugar, el nombre del grupo de colaboración si hubiere y los autores pertenecientes a la UAMThe T2K experiment widely uses plastic scintillator as a target for neutrino interactions and an active medium for the measurement of charged particles produced in neutrino interactions at its near detector complex. Over 10 years of operation the measured light yield recorded by the scintillator based subsystems has been observed to degrade by 0.9–2.2% per year. Extrapolation of the degradation rate through to 2040 indicates the recorded light yield should remain above the lower threshold used by the current reconstruction algorithms for all subsystems. This will allow the near detectors to continue contributing to important physics measurements during the T2K-II and Hyper-Kamiokande eras. Additionally, work to disentangle the degradation of the plastic scintillator and wavelength shifting fibres shows that the reduction in light yield can be attributed to the ageing of the plastic scintillator. The long component of the attenuation length of the wavelength shifting fibres was observed to degrade by 1.3–5.4% per year, while the short component of the attenuation length did not show any conclusive degradationWe thank the J-PARC staff for superb accelerator performance. We thank the CERN NA61/SHINE Collaboration for providing valuable particle production data. We acknowledge the support of MEXT, JSPS KAKENHI (JP16H06288, JP18K03682, JP18H03701, JP18H05537, JP19J01119, JP19J22440, JP19J22258, JP20H00162, JP20H00149, JP20J20304) and bilateral programs (JPJSBP120204806, JPJSBP120209601), Japan; NSERC, the NRC, and CFI, Canada; the CEA and CNRS/IN2P3, France; the DFG (RO 3625/2), Germany; the INFN, Italy; the Ministry of Education and Science( DIR/WK/2017/05) and the National Science Centre (UMO-2018/30/E/ST2/00441), Poland; the RSF19-12-00325, RSF22-12-00358 and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (075-15-2020- 778), Russia; MICINN (SEV-2016-0588, PID2019-107564GB-I00, PGC2018-099388-BI00) and ERDF funds and CERCA program, Spain; the SNSF and SERI (200021_185012, 200020_188533, 20FL21_186178I), Switzerland; the STFC, U.K.; and the DOE, U.S.A. We also thank CERN for the UA1/NOMAD magnet, DESY for the HERA-B magnet mover system, NII for SINET5, the WestGrid and SciNet consortia in Compute Canada, and GridPP in the United Kingdom. In addition, the participation of individual researchers and institutions has been further supported by funds from the ERC (FP7), “la Caixa” Foundation (ID 100010434, fellowship code LCF/BQ/IN17/11620050), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement numbers 713673 and 754496, and H2020 grant numbers RISE-GA822070-JENNIFER2 2020 and RISE-GA872549-SK2HK; the JSPS, Japan; the Royal Society, U.K.; French ANR grant number ANR-19-CE31-0001; and the DOE Early Career programme, U.S.A

Abstract:

Primary challenges for current and future precision neutrino experiments using liquid argon time projection chambers (LArTPCs) include understanding detector effects and quantifying the associated systematic uncertainties. This paper presents a novel technique for assessing and propagating LArTPC detector-related systematic uncertainties. The technique makes modifications to simulation waveforms based on a parameterization of observed differences in ionization signals from the TPC between data and simulation, while remaining insensitive to the details of the detector model. The modifications are then used to quantify the systematic differences in low- and high-level reconstructed quantities. This approach could be applied to future LArTPC detectors, such as those used in SBN and DUNE.

Abstract:

Obtaining a high-quality interaction model with associated uncertainties is essential for neutrino experiments studying oscillations, nuclear scattering processes, or both. As a primary input to the MicroBooNE experiment’s next generation of neutrino cross section measurements and its flagship investigation of the MiniBooNE low-energy excess, we present a new tune of the charged-current pionless (CC0π) interaction cross section via the two major contributing processes—charged-current quasielastic and multinucleon interaction models—within version 3.0.6 of the GENIE neutrino event generator. Parameters in these models are tuned to muon neutrino CC0π cross section data obtained by the T2K experiment, which provides an independent set of neutrino interactions with a neutrino flux in a similar energy range to MicroBooNE’s neutrino beam. Although the fit is to muon neutrino data, the information carries over to electron neutrino simulation because the same underlying models are used in GENIE. A number of novel fit parameters were developed for this work, and the optimal parameters were chosen from existing and new sets. We choose to fit four parameters that have not previously been constrained by theory or data. Thus, this will be called a theory-driven tune. The result is an improved match to the T2K CC0π data with more well-motivated uncertainties based on the fit.

Abstract:

This article presents the reconstruction of the electromagnetic activity from electrons and photons (showers) used in the MicroBooNE deep learning-based low energy electron search. The reconstruction algorithm uses a combination of traditional and deep learning-based techniques to estimate shower energies. We validate these predictions using two νμ-sourced data samples: charged/neutral current interactions with final state neutral pions and charged current interactions in which the muon stops and decays within the detector producing a Michel electron. Both the neutral pion sample and Michel electron sample demonstrate agreement between data and simulation. Further, the absolute shower energy scale is shown to be consistent with the relevant physical constant of each sample: the neutral pion mass peak and the Michel energy cutoff.

Abstract:

We present a search for the decays of a neutral scalar boson produced by kaons decaying at rest, in the context of the Higgs portal model, using the MicroBooNE detector. We analyze data triggered in time with the Fermilab NuMI neutrino beam spill, with an exposure of 1.93×10^{20} protons on target. We look for monoenergetic scalars that come from the direction of the NuMI hadron absorber, at a distance of 100 m from the detector, and decay to electron-positron pairs. We observe one candidate event, with a standard model background prediction of 1.9±0.8. We set an upper limit on the scalar-Higgs mixing angle of θ<(3.3-4.6)×10^{-4} at the 95% confidence level for scalar boson masses in the range (100-200)  MeV/c^{2}. We exclude, at the 95% confidence level, the remaining model parameters required to explain the central value of a possible excess of K_{L}^{0}→π^{0}νν[over ¯] decays reported by the KOTO collaboration. We also provide a model-independent limit on a new boson X produced in K→πX decays and decaying to e^{+}e^{-}.