First Measurement of Charged-Current Muon-Neutrino-Induced K+ Production on Argon Using the MicroBooNE Detector

  • MicroBooNE collaboration

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Abstract

The MicroBooNE experiment is an 85 tonne active mass liquid argon time projection chamber neutrino detector exposed to the on-axis Booster Neutrino Beam at Fermilab. One of MicroBooNE's physics goals is the precise measurement of neutrino interactions on argon in the 1 GeV energy regime. Building on the capabilities of the MicroBooNE detector, this analysis identifies K+ mesons, a key signature for the study of strange particle production in neutrino interactions. This measurement is furthermore valuable for background estimation for future nucleon decay searches and for improved reconstruction and particle identification capabilities in experiments such as the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. In this Letter, we present the first-ever measurement of a flux-integrated cross section for charged-current muon neutrino induced K+ production on argon nuclei, determined to be 7.93±3.22(stat)±2.83(syst)×10-42 cm2/nucleon based on an analysis of 6.88×1020 protons on target. This result was found to be consistent with model predictions from different neutrino event generators within the reported uncertainties.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number251804
JournalPhysical review letters
Volume135
Issue number25
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 19 2025

Bibliographical note

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© 2025 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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