https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-019-7184-7
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
Rejecting cosmic background for exclusive charged current quasi elastic neutrino interaction studies with Liquid Argon TPCs; a case study with the MicroBooNE detector
1
Universität Bern, 3012, Bern, Switzerland
2
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), 11973, Upton, NY, USA
3
University of Cambridge, CB3 0HE, Cambridge, UK
4
University of Chicago, 60637, Chicago, IL, USA
5
University of Cincinnati, 45221, Cincinnati, OH, USA
6
Colorado State University, 80523, Fort Collins, CO, USA
7
Columbia University, 10027, New York, NY, USA
8
Davidson College, 28035, Davidson, NC, USA
9
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), 60510, Batavia, IL, USA
10
Harvard University, 02138, Cambridge, MA, USA
11
Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), 60616, Chicago, IL, USA
12
Kansas State University (KSU), 66506, Manhattan, KS, USA
13
Lancaster University, LA1 4YW, Lancaster, UK
14
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), 87545, Los Alamos, NM, USA
15
The University of Manchester, M13 9PL, Manchester, UK
16
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 02139, Cambridge, MA, USA
17
University of Michigan, 48109, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
18
New Mexico State University (NMSU), 88003, Las Cruces, NM, USA
19
Otterbein University, 43081, Westerville, OH, USA
20
University of Oxford, OX1 3RH, Oxford, UK
21
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), 99352, Richland, WA, USA
22
University of Pittsburgh, 15260, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
23
Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, 55987, Winona, MN, USA
24
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 94025, Menlo Park, CA, USA
25
South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSMT), 57701, Rapid City, SD, USA
26
Syracuse University, 13244, Syracuse, NY, USA
27
Tel Aviv University, 69978, Tel Aviv, Israel
28
University of Tennessee, 37996, Knoxville, TN, USA
29
University of Texas, 76019, Arlington, TX, USA
30
TUBITAK Space Technologies Research Institute, METU Campus, 06800, Ankara, Turkey
31
Tufts University, 02155, Medford, MA, USA
32
Center for Neutrino Physics, Virginia Tech, 24061, Blacksburg, VA, USA
33
University of Warwick, CV4 7AL, Coventry, UK
34
Yale University, 06520, New Haven, CT, USA
bs
hen@mit.edu
Received:
22
April
2019
Accepted:
31
July
2019
Published online:
12
August
2019
Cosmic ray (CR) interactions can be a challenging source of background for neutrino oscillation and cross-section measurements in surface detectors. We present methods for CR rejection in measurements of charged-current quasielastic-like (CCQE-like) neutrino interactions, with a muon and a proton in the final state, measured using liquid argon time projection chambers (LArTPCs). Using a sample of cosmic data collected with the MicroBooNE detector, mixed with simulated neutrino scattering events, a set of event selection criteria is developed that produces an event sample with minimal contribution from CR background. Depending on the selection criteria used a purity between 50 and 80% can be achieved with a signal selection efficiency between 50 and 25%, with higher purity coming at the expense of lower efficiency. While using a specific dataset and selection criteria values optimized for the MicroBooNE detector, the concepts presented here are generic and can be adapted for various studies of exclusive CCQE interactions in LArTPCs.
© The Author(s) 2019
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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