Accelerator Neutrinos

Abstract:

Final-state kinematic imbalances are measured in mesonless production of νμ+A→μ-+p+X in the MINERvA tracker. Initial- and final-state nuclear effects are probed using the direction of the μ - p transverse momentum imbalance and the initial-state momentum of the struck neutron. Differential cross sections are compared to predictions based on current approaches to medium modeling. These models underpredict the cross section at intermediate intranuclear momentum transfers that generally exceed the Fermi momenta. As neutrino interaction models need to correctly incorporate the effect of the nucleus in order to predict neutrino energy resolution in oscillation experiments, this result points to a region of phase space where additional cross section strength is needed in current models, and demonstrates a new technique that would be suitable for use in fine-grained liquid argon detectors where the effect of the nucleus may be even larger.

Abstract:

A search for new heavy particles that decay into top-quark pairs is performed using data collected from proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13  TeV by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The integrated luminosity of the data sample is 36.1 fb -1 . Events consistent with top-quark pair production are selected by requiring a single isolated charged lepton, missing transverse momentum and jet activity compatible with a hadronic top-quark decay. Jets identified as likely to contain b-hadrons are required to reduce the background from other Standard Model processes. The invariant mass spectrum of the candidate top-quark pairs is examined for local excesses above the background expectation. No significant deviations from the Standard Model predictions are found. Exclusion limits are set on the production cross-section times branching ratio for hypothetical Z' bosons, Kaluza-Kein gluons and Kaluza-Klein gravitons that decay into top-quark pairs.

Abstract:

We describe the concept and procedure of drifted-charge extraction developed in the MicroBooNE experiment, a single-phase liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC). This technique converts the raw digitized TPC waveform to the number of ionization electrons passing through a wire plane at a given time. A robust recovery of the number of ionization electrons from both induction and collection anode wire planes will augment the 3D reconstruction, and is particularly important for tomographic reconstruction algorithms. A number of building blocks of the overall procedure are described. The performance of the signal processing is quantitatively evaluated by comparing extracted charge with the true charge through a detailed TPC detector simulation taking into account position-dependent induced current inside a single wire region and across multiple wires. Some areas for further improvement of the performance of the charge extraction procedure are also discussed.

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.