https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-014-2986-0
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
Procedure for short-lived particle detection in the OPERA experiment and its application to charm decays
1
INR-Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 117312 , Moscow, Russia
2
SINP MSU-Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119991 , Moscow, Russia
3
Kobe University, Kobe, 657-8501, Japan
4
Albert Einstein Center for Fundamental Physics, Laboratory for High Energy Physics (LHEP), University of Bern, 3012 , Bern, Switzerland
5
METU-Middle East Technical University, 06531 , Ankara, Turkey
6
INFN Sezione di Padova, 35131 , Padua, Italy
7
Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università di Salerno and “Gruppo Collegato” INFN, 84084 , Fisciano, Salerno, Italy
8
Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia dell’Università di Padova, 35131 , Padua, Italy
9
Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università Federico II di Napoli, 80125 , Naples, Italy
10
INFN Sezione di Napoli, 80125 , Naples, Italy
11
Hamburg University, 22761 , Hamburg, Germany
12
LPI-Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 119991 , Moscow, Russia
13
JINR-Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, 141980 , Dubna, Russia
14
INFN-Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, 67010 , Assergi, L’Aquila, Italy
15
Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università di Bari, 70126 , Bari, Italy
16
INFN Sezione di Bari, 70126 , Bari, Italy
17
LAPP, Université de Savoie, CNRS/IN2P3, 74941 , Annecy-le-Vieux, France
18
INFN Sezione di Bologna, 40127 , Bologna, Italy
19
IPHC, Université de Strasbourg, CNRS/IN2P3, 67037 , Strasbourg, France
20
Toho University, Funabashi, 274-8510, Japan
21
Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia dell’Università di Bologna, 40127 , Bologna, Italy
22
Department of Physics, Technion, 32000 , Haifa, Israel
23
INFN Sezione di Roma, 00185 , Rome, Italy
24
Nagoya University, Nagoya, 464-8602, Japan
25
IRB-Rudjer Boskovic Institute, 10002 , Zagreb, Croatia
26
Gyeongsang National University, 900 Gazwa-dong, Jinju, 660-701, Korea
27
Aichi University of Education, Kariya, Aichi-Ken, 448-8542, Japan
28
INFN-Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati dell’INFN, 00044 , Frascati, Rome, Italy
29
Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, 00185 , Rome, Italy
30
Nihon University, Narashino, Chiba, 275-8576, Japan
31
Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università di Milano-Bicocca, 20126 , Milan, Italy
32
IIHE, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1050 , Brussels, Belgium
33
Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea
34
Samsung Changwon Hospital, SKKU, Changwon, Korea
* e-mail: Marilisa.Deserio@ba.infn.it
** e-mail: alessandra.pastore@ba.infn.it
Received:
16
April
2014
Accepted:
15
July
2014
Published online:
7
August
2014
The OPERA experiment, designed to perform the first observation of oscillations in appearance mode through the detection of the
leptons produced in
charged current interactions, has collected data from 2008 to 2012. In the present paper, the procedure developed to detect
particle decays, occurring over distances of the order of
from the neutrino interaction point, is described in detail and applied to the search for charmed hadrons, showing similar decay topologies as the
lepton. In the analysed sample, 50 charm decay candidate events are observed while
are expected, proving that the detector performance and the analysis chain applied to neutrino events are well reproduced by the OPERA simulation and thus validating the methods for
appearance detection.
© SIF and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2014