MicroBooNE investigations on the photon interpretation of the MiniBooNE low energy excess

Fuente: arXiv
Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
1. Verfasser: Ge, Guanqun
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
_version_ 1866914965544239104
author Ge, Guanqun
author_facet Ge, Guanqun
contents The MicroBooNE experiment is a liquid argon time projection chamber with 85-ton active volume at Fermilab, operated from 2015 to 2020 to collect neutrino data from Fermilab's Booster Neutrino Beam. One of MicroBooNE's physics goals is to investigate possible explanations of the low-energy excess observed by the MiniBooNE experiment in $ν_μ\rightarrow ν_{e}$ neutrino oscillation measurements. MicroBooNE has performed searches to test hypothetical interpretations of the MiniBooNE low-energy excess, including the underestimation of the photon background or instrinic $ν_{e}$ background. This thesis presents MicroBooNE's searches for two neutral current (NC) single-photon production processes that contribute to the photon background of the MiniBooNE measurement: NC $Δ$ resonance production followed by $Δ$ radiative decay: $Δ\rightarrow Nγ$, and NC coherent single-photon production. Both searches take advantage of boosted decision trees to yield efficient background rejection, and a high-statistic NC $π^0$ measurement to constrain dominant background, and make use of MicroBooNE's first three years of data. The NC $Δ\rightarrow Nγ$ measurement yielded a bound on the $Δ$ radiative decay process at 2.3 times the predicted nominal rate at 90% confidence level (C.L.), disfavoring a candidate photon interpretation of the MiniBooNE low-energy excess as a factor of 3.18 times the nominal NC $Δ$ radiative decay rate at the 94.8% C.L. The NC coherent single photon measurement leads to the world's first experimental limit on the cross-section of this process below 1 GeV, of $1.49 \times 10^{-41} \text{cm}^2$ at 90% C.L., corresponding to 24.0 times the nominal prediction.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_04048
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle MicroBooNE investigations on the photon interpretation of the MiniBooNE low energy excess
Ge, Guanqun
High Energy Physics - Experiment
The MicroBooNE experiment is a liquid argon time projection chamber with 85-ton active volume at Fermilab, operated from 2015 to 2020 to collect neutrino data from Fermilab's Booster Neutrino Beam. One of MicroBooNE's physics goals is to investigate possible explanations of the low-energy excess observed by the MiniBooNE experiment in $ν_μ\rightarrow ν_{e}$ neutrino oscillation measurements. MicroBooNE has performed searches to test hypothetical interpretations of the MiniBooNE low-energy excess, including the underestimation of the photon background or instrinic $ν_{e}$ background. This thesis presents MicroBooNE's searches for two neutral current (NC) single-photon production processes that contribute to the photon background of the MiniBooNE measurement: NC $Δ$ resonance production followed by $Δ$ radiative decay: $Δ\rightarrow Nγ$, and NC coherent single-photon production. Both searches take advantage of boosted decision trees to yield efficient background rejection, and a high-statistic NC $π^0$ measurement to constrain dominant background, and make use of MicroBooNE's first three years of data. The NC $Δ\rightarrow Nγ$ measurement yielded a bound on the $Δ$ radiative decay process at 2.3 times the predicted nominal rate at 90% confidence level (C.L.), disfavoring a candidate photon interpretation of the MiniBooNE low-energy excess as a factor of 3.18 times the nominal NC $Δ$ radiative decay rate at the 94.8% C.L. The NC coherent single photon measurement leads to the world's first experimental limit on the cross-section of this process below 1 GeV, of $1.49 \times 10^{-41} \text{cm}^2$ at 90% C.L., corresponding to 24.0 times the nominal prediction.
title MicroBooNE investigations on the photon interpretation of the MiniBooNE low energy excess
topic High Energy Physics - Experiment
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.04048