Dr Kirsty Duffy

Abstract:

The MicroBooNE detector utilizes a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) with an 85 t active mass to study neutrino interactions along the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) at Fermilab. With a deployment location near ground level, the detector records many cosmic muon tracks in each beam-related detector trigger that can be misidentified as signals of interest. To reduce these cosmogenic backgrounds, we have designed and constructed a TPC-external Cosmic Ray Tagger (CRT) . This sub-system was developed by the Laboratory for High Energy Physics (LHEP), Albert Einstein center for fundamental physics, University of Bern. The system utilizes plastic scintillation modules to provide precise time and position information for TPC-traversing particles. Successful matching of TPC tracks and CRT data will allow us to reduce cosmogenic background and better characterize the light collection system and LArTPC data using cosmic muons. In this paper we describe the design and installation of the MicroBooNE CRT system and provide an overview of a series of tests done to verify the proper operation of the system and its components during installation, commissioning, and physics data-taking.

Abstract:

The DUNE Near Detector design consists of multiple components, each designed to produce complementary constraints on flux and neutrino interaction systematic uncertainties for the oscillation analyses. One of these subdetectors is a magnetized high-pressure gaseous-argon TPC (HPgTPC), which will provide fine-grained tracking in a low-density detector, using the same target nucleus as the DUNE far detector. With its low momentum threshold for particle detection, the HPgTPC will be able to constrain one of the most crucial - and least-well understood - uncertainties for the oscillation analysis: nuclear effects in neutrino-argon interactions. These proceedings describe the current design, physics goals, and projected performance of the HPgTPC, as well as the ongoing R&D work at Fermilab, in which a test-stand TPC is being built and will be operated at up to 10 atm pressure.

Abstract:

This paper reports measurements of final-state proton multiplicity, muon and proton kinematics, and their correlations in charged-current pionless neutrino interactions, measured by the T2K ND280 near detector in its plastic scintillator (C8H8) target. The data were taken between years 2010 and 2013, corresponding to approximately 6×1020 protons on target. Thanks to their exploration of the proton kinematics and of imbalances between the proton and muon kinematics, the results offer a novel probe of the nuclear-medium effects most pertinent to the (sub-)GeV neutrino-nucleus interactions that are used in accelerator-based long-baseline neutrino oscillation measurements. These 3 results are compared to many neutrino-nucleus interaction models which all fail to describe at least part of the observed phase space. In case of events without a proton above a detection threshold in the final state, a fully consistent implementation of the local Fermi gas model with multinucleon interactions gives the best description of the data. In the case of at least one proton in the final state the spectral function model agrees well with the data, most notably when measuring the kinematic imbalance between the muon and the proton in the plane transverse to the incoming neutrino. Within the models considered, only the existence of multinucleon interactions are able to describe the extracted cross-section within regions of high transverse kinematic imbalance. The effect of final-state interactions is also discussed.

Abstract:

We report a measurement of the flux-integrated cross section for inclusive muon neutrino chargedcurrent interactions on carbon. The double-differential measurements are given as a function of the muon momentum and angle. Relative to our previous publication on this topic, these results have an increased angular acceptance and higher statistics. The data sample presented here corresponds to 5.7 × 1020 protons on target. The total flux-integrated cross section is measured to be ð6.950 0.662Þ × 10−39 cm2 nucleon−1 and is consistent with our simulation.

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.