Abstract
The MicroBooNE liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) has been taking data at Fermilab since 2015 collecting, in addition to neutrino beam, cosmic-ray muons. Results are presented on the reconstruction of Michel electrons produced by the decay at rest of cosmic-ray muons. Michel electrons are abundantly produced in the TPC, and given their well known energy spectrum can be used to study MicroBooNE's detector response to low-energy electrons (electrons with energies up to ∼ 50 MeV). We describe the fully-automated algorithm developed to reconstruct Michel electrons, with which a sample of ∼ 14,000 Michel electron candidates is obtained. Most of this article is dedicated to studying the impact of radiative photons produced by Michel electrons on the accuracy and resolution of their energy measurement. In this energy range, ionization and bremsstrahlung photon production contribute similarly to electron energy loss in argon, leading to a complex electron topology in the TPC. By profiling the performance of the reconstruction algorithm on simulation we show that the ability to identify and include energy deposited by radiative photons leads to a significant improvement in the energy measurement of low-energy electrons. The fractional energy resolution we measure improves from over 30% to ∼ 20% when we attempt to include radiative photons in the reconstruction. These studies are relevant to a large number of analyses which aim to study neutrinos by measuring electrons produced by νe interactions over a broad energy range.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | P09014 |
Journal | Journal of Instrumentation |
Volume | 12 |
Issue number | 9 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 14 2017 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This material is based upon work supported by the following: the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Offices of High Energy Physics and Nuclear Physics; the U.S. National Science Foundation; the Swiss National Science Foundation; the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom; and The Royal Society (United Kingdom). Additional support for the laser calibration system and cosmic ray tagger was provided by the Albert Einstein Center for Fundamental Physics. Fermilab is operated by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359 with the United States Department of Energy.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 IOP Publishing Ltd and Sissa Medialab.
Keywords
- Neutrino detectors
- Noble liquid detectors (scintillation, ionization, double-phase)
- Performance of High Energy Physics Detectors
- Time projection chambers