TY - JOUR
T1 - Search for Neutrino-Induced Neutral-Current Δ Radiative Decay in MicroBooNE and a First Test of the MiniBooNE Low Energy Excess under a Single-Photon Hypothesis
AU - (MicroBooNE Collaboration)
AU - Abratenko, P.
AU - An, R.
AU - Anthony, J.
AU - Arellano, L.
AU - Asaadi, J.
AU - Ashkenazi, A.
AU - Balasubramanian, S.
AU - Baller, B.
AU - Barnes, C.
AU - Barr, G.
AU - Basque, V.
AU - Bathe-Peters, L.
AU - Benevides Rodrigues, O.
AU - Berkman, S.
AU - Bhanderi, A.
AU - Bhat, A.
AU - Bishai, M.
AU - Blake, A.
AU - Bolton, T.
AU - Book, J. Y.
AU - Camilleri, L.
AU - Caratelli, D.
AU - Caro Terrazas, I.
AU - Castillo Fernandez, R.
AU - Cavanna, F.
AU - Cerati, G.
AU - Chen, Y.
AU - Cianci, D.
AU - Conrad, J. M.
AU - Convery, M.
AU - Cooper-Troendle, L.
AU - Crespo-Anadón, J. I.
AU - Del Tutto, M.
AU - Dennis, S. R.
AU - Detje, P.
AU - Devitt, A.
AU - Diurba, R.
AU - Dorrill, R.
AU - Duffy, K.
AU - Dytman, S.
AU - Eberly, B.
AU - Ereditato, A.
AU - Evans, J. J.
AU - Fine, R.
AU - Fiorentini Aguirre, G. A.
AU - Fitzpatrick, R. S.
AU - Fleming, B. T.
AU - Foppiani, N.
AU - Furmanski, A. P.
AU - Hilgenberg, C.
N1 - Funding Information:
This document was prepared by the MicroBooNE Collaboration using the resources of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), a U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, HEP User Facility. Fermilab is managed by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC (FRA), acting under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359. MicroBooNE is supported by 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 (STFC), part of the United Kingdom Research and Innovation; the Royal Society (United Kingdom); and The European Union’s Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. Additional support for the laser calibration system and cosmic ray tagger was provided by the Albert Einstein Center for Fundamental Physics, Bern, Switzerland.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 authors. Published by the American Physical Society.
PY - 2022/3/18
Y1 - 2022/3/18
N2 - We report results from a search for neutrino-induced neutral current (NC) resonant Δ(1232) baryon production followed by Δ radiative decay, with a ⟨0.8⟩ GeV neutrino beam. Data corresponding to MicroBooNE's first three years of operations (6.80×10^{20} protons on target) are used to select single-photon events with one or zero protons and without charged leptons in the final state (1γ1p and 1γ0p, respectively). The background is constrained via an in situ high-purity measurement of NC π^{0} events, made possible via dedicated 2γ1p and 2γ0p selections. A total of 16 and 153 events are observed for the 1γ1p and 1γ0p selections, respectively, compared to a constrained background prediction of 20.5±3.65(syst) and 145.1±13.8(syst) events. The data lead to a bound on an anomalous enhancement of the normalization of NC Δ radiative decay of less than 2.3 times the predicted nominal rate for this process at the 90% confidence level (C.L.). The measurement disfavors 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., in favor of the nominal prediction, and represents a greater than 50-fold improvement over the world's best limit on single-photon production in NC interactions in the sub-GeV neutrino energy range.
AB - We report results from a search for neutrino-induced neutral current (NC) resonant Δ(1232) baryon production followed by Δ radiative decay, with a ⟨0.8⟩ GeV neutrino beam. Data corresponding to MicroBooNE's first three years of operations (6.80×10^{20} protons on target) are used to select single-photon events with one or zero protons and without charged leptons in the final state (1γ1p and 1γ0p, respectively). The background is constrained via an in situ high-purity measurement of NC π^{0} events, made possible via dedicated 2γ1p and 2γ0p selections. A total of 16 and 153 events are observed for the 1γ1p and 1γ0p selections, respectively, compared to a constrained background prediction of 20.5±3.65(syst) and 145.1±13.8(syst) events. The data lead to a bound on an anomalous enhancement of the normalization of NC Δ radiative decay of less than 2.3 times the predicted nominal rate for this process at the 90% confidence level (C.L.). The measurement disfavors 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., in favor of the nominal prediction, and represents a greater than 50-fold improvement over the world's best limit on single-photon production in NC interactions in the sub-GeV neutrino energy range.
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U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.111801
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.111801
M3 - Article
C2 - 35363017
AN - SCOPUS:85127428934
SN - 0031-9007
VL - 128
JO - Physical review letters
JF - Physical review letters
IS - 11
M1 - 111801
ER -